U.S. labor campaign group has called on Taiwan to be downgraded in the U.S. State Department’s upcoming Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report due to claims the country has failed to address abuses in its fishing fleet.

Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF) and Greenpeace Taiwan, on behalf of the Seafood Working Group (SWG), are demanding Taiwan be named a Tier 2 country in the annual TIP, set to be published this summer. The State Department describes as the document as the “U.S. government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.”

An investigation by the Thomson Reuters Foundation last year found Thai prisoners were being forced to make fishing nets for private companies - including one that exported to the United States.