ABSTRACT
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a serious offence often occurring in conjunction with large-scale fraud, corruption and human rights and labour abuses as among cost-cutting mechanisms in a globalised market of fisheries products. These constitute threats to maritime security as they tend to threaten human communities and display operational synergies with organised crime. They are mostly associated with long-distance industrial fleets and elaborate schemes of hiding beneficial ownership. In Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) around the globe, they decrease the viability of small-scale commercial and subsistence fisheries (SSF), deprive particularly developing countries of legitimate income and undermine management. This tends to threaten women selectively with poverty by weakening their entrepreneurial roles in the value chains and thus increasing food insecurity of households and entire countries. Reducing overcapacity, phasing out subsidies to distant-water fleets, disallowing transhipment at sea and strengthening control of illicit practices are part of building more secure and sustainable futures of food production from the ocean. Key aspects for overcoming these global challenges and their regional and local manifestations are explored.
