Group photo of ILO workshop – Ghana Reviews FCWC Draft Protocol on Decent Work in Fisheries
The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Ghana’s Fisheries Commission (FC) participated in a two-day national consultation workshop on 25 & 26 April 2024 at the Crismon Hotel in Tema, Ghana.
The workshop was organized to solicit feedback from stakeholders on the draft Protocol to Address Labour Standards for Crew and the Elimination of Forced Labour on Fishing Vessels in the FCWC region. The draft protocol was developed as an addition to the Convention for the Establishment of the FCWC, to address decent work deficits in the region. The protocol requires input from national stakeholders for each FCWC Member State ahead of a regional workshop where the inputs will be consolidated into a refined protocol for ministerial adoption.
The meeting was opened by Madam Esi Bordah Quayson (representing the Executive Director of the Fisheries Commission Fred Antwi-Boadu), who stressed the significance of the workshop: to revise the protocol in effort to strengthen the legal regime for regulating the sector.
In his presentation during the workshop, ILO National Project Coordinator, Mr Emmanuel Kwame Mensah laid out the context for the development of the draft protocol as part of ILO’s 8.7 Accelerator Lab project. He further took participants through examples of how forced labour indicators manifest in the field and demonstrated possible approaches to consider in developing policy to effectively address such issues.
Participants in the meeting included representatives of FCWC, ILO, Ghana’s Fisheries Commission, National Fisheries Association of Ghana (NAFAG), National Union of Seamen, Ports and Allied Workers (NUSPAW), Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), Ghana Industrial Trawlers Association (GITA), Ghana Tuna Association (GTA), Maritime and Dockworkers Union (MDU), and the Labour Department of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations (MELR).
The meeting’s participants in a series of breakout sessions, reviewed the protocol article by article and made suggestions to adapt it to better address the realities of the fisheries labour sector. The meeting’s participants as a group also reviewed the initial responses to the fisheries labour sector assessment questionnaire.
The meeting concluded with the successful completion of the review of the draft protocol, successful updates to the national assessment questionnaire responses, and the nomination of a worker’s focal point for the regional working group on labour standards.
