A Year of Human Rights Covenants: Great Leap for Taiwan National Human Rights Commission, Taiwan ▋ Participants after the presentation of the “NHRC Foreign Fishermen’s Human Rights Special Report.” conditions must comply with the standards of basic human rights. Hence, the differential treatment for foreign fishing crew in the existing laws and regulations have clearly violated the equality in rights as specified in the ICESCR. The government must amend the Act for Distant Water Fisheries and the relevant regulations; implementing compulsory social insurance, labor insurance, occupational accident insurance, and national health insurance; as well as establishing the occupational accident prevention and compensation plans and providing safety and health equipment and basic safety training. ii. Control of flags of convenience (FOC) through international cooperation: We understand that the Fisheries Agency implements total quantity control and does not support FOCs in order to combat human trafficking. However, we believe that more positive actions should be taken to combat FOCs engaging in illegal, unreported, and unregulated catch and labor exploitation through the pressure from the countries of fisheries products. How to prevent the human rights violation of fishing crew is the issue that concerns us most. The government should further establish a monitoring mechanism to conduct labor rights inspections of vessels at port. iii. Prevention of double exploitation through enhanced recruitment agency management: Multinational “manning” agencies act more like the actual employers of foreign fishing crews. The range of services they offer include fishing crew management, local training, and wage payment. These tasks also provide opportunities for malicious agencies to deduct wages and impose different charges on the foreign fishing crew. Even worse, agencies and employers shift the blame onto each National Human Rights Commission 2022 Annual Report 53