KARACHI, Oct 28: An international conference on coastal communities has called upon the countries of South Asia that fishworkers should not be made victims of maritime boundary disputes between states.

It also stressed that states needed to have working arrangements that provided fishworkers access to resources in such fishing grounds for livelihood.

A statement of the conference was issued here by the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, an NGO committed to protection of the rights of Pakistani fishermen.

The statement said: “It is important that legislation to deal with the arrest and detention of fishworkers in the waters of other coastal states should not violate the spirit of Article 73 of the 1982 Convention, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1976, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1976.”

The conference also suggested that penalties for illegal fishing be based on the principles of proportionality. It urged that fish workers using small-scale vessels apprehended in territorial waters for illegal fishing should not be prosecuted under laws that applied to illegal immigrants.

In such cases the fact that the illegal fishing occurred within territorial waters rather than the Exclusive Economic Zone, should not lead to punishment that were more severe that for similar violation in the EEZ, the statement said.

Recognizing that rigid enforcement of maritime boundaries in historic waters in relation to communities that lived and fished close to such boundaries could lead to tragic consequences, the interests of such communities needed to be accommodated along with security and other national concerns.

Held in Chennai in the second week of October, it was the first-ever conference on Indian coastal communities and the Indian Ocean’s future. It was organized by the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, an international non-governmental organization working on the issues that concern fishworkers the world ever.

The conference discussed issues relating to fisheries and fishworkers of the Indian Ocean. More than 50 participants from about 15 countries, including Pakistan, mainly representing the Indian Ocean region, converged in the southern Indian city of Chennai.

A representative of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) also attended the conference. According to a PFF spokesman, over the five days the participants of the conference deliberated on issues ranging from ecosystem considerations for managing fisheries in the Indian Ocean to trans-boundary movements of fishers as well as international instruments for managing fisheries in the Indian Ocean.