JAKARTA - The European Union’s Ship to Shore Rights South-East Asia (S2SR) programme has officially expanded to Malaysia to protect migrant workers and improve labour conditions in the country’s fishing, seafood processing, and aquaculture sectors.

The latest phase of the programme, running from January 2025 to December 2028, has a budget of EUR 11 million. It covers several countries across South-East Asia, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and others.

At the launch in Putrajaya, south of Kuala Lumpur, officials from the Malaysian government, the EU, and the International Labour Organization (ILO) agreed on a joint plan to address the vulnerabilities faced by migrant workers in the blue economy. 

Migrant worker resource centres will also be set up by unions and civil society groups to improve access to information, services, and legal support.

The “blue economy” in South-East Asia, which covers fishing, aquaculture, and seafood processing, is a major source of employment and vital to many national economies. In 2020, Asia was home to more than 19 million fish farmers and 30 million fishers.

However, the ILO notes that migrant workers in these sectors face serious risks such as unsafe migration, lack of labour rights, forced labour, and recruitment abuses.

Since its launch in Thailand in 2016, the Ship to Shore Rights programme has rolled out multiple initiatives. In Central Java, Indonesia, it helped develop a Joint Monitoring Team for Labour Norms on Fisheries Vessels and supported cooperation between Indonesia’s manpower and marine ministries on recruitment and vessel inspections.

The programme also backs migrant worker centres and related services, offering legal aid, pre-departure training, reintegration support, and migration counselling. In earlier phases, 23 such centres assisted more than 236,000 migrant workers.