Impact

SeafoodSource, an industry publication, reported that U.S. Representative Chris Smith, chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), introduced the No PRC Seafood in Congress Act. This act would prohibit seafood originating from China from being purchased, served, or sold in congressional food-service facilities. SeafoodSource cited The Outlaw Ocean Project as the organization that first that forced labor exists in Chinese seafood supply chains and that seafood linked to those supply chains has reached U.S. institutions, including military bases, federal prisons, public schools, and Congressional cafeterias. Urbina recently testified before the CECC about these findings.

SeafoodSource, an industry publication, covered an initiative by nine U.S. senators calling on the U.S. Department of Treasury to impose sanctions on vessels that support China's distant-water fishing fleet. It noted that criticism of the Chinese fishing sector by U.S. lawmakers has intensified since 2023, when The Outlaw Ocean Project began publishing a series of investigative reports on China's distant-water fishing fleet.

SeafoodSource reported that the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) is calling on the U.S. government to ban the import of seafood caught or processed by China, citing concerns regarding forced labor. The report notes that Chinese seafood has been under increased scrutiny by the U.S. government since a 2023 report by The Outlaw Ocean Project identified forced labor and Uyghur labor within the Chinese supply chain.

SeafoodSource reported the European Union's growing concern regarding the origin of squid sold in the European market, particularly squid caught by China's distant-water fishing fleet. It calls the OO 2023 investigation a "bombshell report" for revealing labor violations in global seafood supply chains and cites it as key evidence justifying the EU's increased scrutiny of squid imports.

Samara Croci, Communications Manager at Healthy Seas, a Dutch marine conservation foundation dedicated to eliminating marine litter and ghost nets, discussed how the ocean can appear healthy while undergoing profound, often invisible changes. She cites journalist Ian Urbina from The Outlaw Ocean Project, who has written about how humanity has long viewed the sea as an inexhaustible realm, a space so vast that it could absorb everything we threw into it.

Corriere della Sera, one of Italy's premier daily newspapers, reported about how Chinese-caught squid enters the Italian market, despite widespread allegations of forced labor, illegal fishing, overfishing, and human rights abuses associated with China's distant-water fishing fleet and seafood processing industry. The article presents The Outlaw Ocean Project as an important investigative source that exposed labor abuses inside China's seafood processing industry involving workers from North Korea and Uyghurs transferred from Xinjiang.

The Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties and Human Rights published an article explaining that thousands of North Korean workers sent abroad, particularly to Russia and China, face grueling working conditions, constant surveillance, and the North Korean government confiscates most of their wages. The article cites the OO investigation that traced North Korean forced labor to seafood processing plants in China whose products subsequently entered supply chains in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

The Washington Center For Human Rights, an US non-profit focused in protecting and encouraging human rights and freedoms across the world with particular focus on vulnerable communities and ethnic minorities, published about products manufactured using forced labor from North Korean workers and how they may be entering European Union supply chains, particularly through seafood processing plants in China. The article points out that the Outlaw Ocean Project made the discovery in an investigation in 2024.

The Environmental Justice Foundation published a major global report documenting labor abuses and illegal fishing practices in the Chinese distant-water fishing industry. Drawing on testimonies from 431 Indonesian and Filipino fishers collected between 2020 and 2025, the report was informed in part by research provided by The Outlaw Ocean Project, including supply-chain analyses of South Korean and Taiwanese squid fleets, as well as additional intelligence generated through the Bait to Plate platform.

Renewable Matter (also known as Materia Rinnovabile) is an international magazine and online platform based in Italy, dedicated to bioeconomy, and ecological transition. It published an opinion piece by Editor-in-Chief Emanuele Bompan on the hidden costs of food in global supply chains. The article cites the work of The Outlaw Ocean Project, which exposed the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians, Uyghurs, and North Koreans trapped aboard Chinese-flagged fishing vessels for months or even years under deplorable sanitary conditions. Many were malnourished, denied contact with their families, and had their passports confiscated.

Rep. Julia Letlow (R-Louisiana) introduced the Buy American Seafood Act, arguing that taxpayer-funded meals should support U.S. fishermen and processors, not foreign suppliers. SeafoodSource cited the 2023 Outlaw Ocean Project investigation that found that seafood bought for U.S. school lunches was often processed in China, even though USDA said its seafood sourcing rules require U.S. origin and U.S.-approved processing.

SeafoodSource published an article about the Outlaw Ocean Project’s testimony before the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on April 16, where they previewed their upcoming investigation into the global aquaculture industry. Urbina described how the new reporting will examine the hidden costs behind fish farming, including fishmeal supply chains, environmental damage, and alleged forced labor, particularly in connection with China. The article also highlights the impact of Outlaw Ocean’s previous seafood investigation, which triggered industry scrutiny, congressional hearings, and renewed U.S. efforts to strengthen enforcement against forced labor and illegal fishing in global seafood supply chains.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) is a bi-partisan body that is a long-running hybrid creation of the White House and Congress, focused on all matters concerning China. Yesterday, it held a hearing that generally examined forced labor in China's seafood production. They asked The Outlaw Ocean Project to present the findings of its new investigation. The last time we testified before Congress was in 2023 about our last investigation.

In the hearing, Ian Urbina shared some preliminary findings from our upcoming “Food for Feed” investigation, which examines the global fishmeal and aquaculture industries and reveals various labor and environmental abuses within supply chain of the global aquaculture industry. The investigation was conducted by a team of more than two dozen reporters from as many countries as we looked at roughly 1,400 fishmeal plants worldwide. We inspected vessels supplying these plants, traced the feed's destination, and tracked where the seafood ends up.

The hearing focused on the China portion of our findings: 1200 fish farms in Xinjiang and Tibet, an area representing the fastest-growing segment of China's fish farming industry. We also discussed the fact that seafood from fish farms in Xinjiang is being exported to the US in violation of federal law. Furthermore, the US-based firm, BAP, has in some cases, certified these farms, despite the ban on any products tied to this region.

Seafood Source, an industry publication, wrote that the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) confirmed its certification program is set to expire in China in 2027, requiring several companies certified under the standard to pivot within the next year. Seafood Source explained that ASC started pulling out of China in March 2024, when it closed its office there, after an Outlaw Ocean Project investigation revealed that the program had failed to spot forced labor linked to China’s Xinjiang labor transfer program in certified seafood supply chains.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a report on November 25 about Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing. In its discussion of labor abuses linked to IUU fishing, the report cites investigations by the Outlaw Ocean Project documenting cases of forced labor, debt bondage, and violence aboard distant water fishing vessels.

On December 10, 2025, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bipartisan committee set up by the White House and Congress, released its annual report which included recommendations to stop seafood tied to forced labor from entering the US. The report, which drew heavily on recent Outlaw Ocean reporting about China, urged Congress to pass the FISH Act and restrict the Defense Dept. procurement of Chinese seafood. The report also called for the administration to create a consolidated blacklist of vessels and companies tied to illegal fishing and forced labor. It further called for the ramping up of investigations toward new import bans on seafood processors in Shandong and Liaoning, and prohibition on commissary sales of China-sourced seafood.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the bipartisan Stop Illegal Fishing Act, targeting illegal fishing and forced labor on Chinese fleets, and advanced the bill to the full House. During the markup, co-sponsor Rep. Chris Smith highlighted findings from the Outlaw Ocean Project’s four-year investigation, which documented serious forced-labor concerns on 357 of the 751 Chinese squid vessels examined.

In September, 2025, EJF, an environmental advocacy group, released an extensive report about environmental and human rights concerns tied to three major distant-water squid fishing fleets (China, Taiwan, South Korea). The report relied heavily on The Outlaw Ocean's Bait-to-Plate tool for the sake of supply-chain connections to documented crimes and concerns on Asian fishing ships. The Washington Post subsequently covered the report and also cited the Outlaw Ocean Project's prior work.

In Nov. 2023, the Outlaw Ocean Project produced a story in Politico magazine revealing that more than $140 million worth of cod, salmon and halibut was delivered to commissaries and cafeterias at hundreds of U.S. military bases domestically and abroad by importers that source from plants using state-sponsored forced labor from Xinjiang, China. The story explained that various exemptions allow local-level buyers for the school lunch or other federally supported programs to purchase food and other products if they are looking for better options in terms of price, quality, quantity or availability. States and large school districts have historically used USDA grants to purchase seafood directly from commercial vendors, much of which is sourced through China. In response to the story, a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote a letter to six cabinet members seeking a review of Defense Dept purchases of seafood tied to forced labor in China. The subsequent National Defense Authorization bill obligated the Defense Dept to produce a report explaining their vetting process and whether the agency was in compliance with the Tariff Act of 1930 that bans the importation of goods produced in foreign countries by forced labor. In Sept, 2025, The Inspector General published an audit, concluding that the Defense Dept had purchased over $119 million of seafood for military bases over the last 3 fiscal years directly from approved US vendors but roughly $641,791 of seafood purchases came via third parties which risked being out of compliance with federal procurement rules, including the prohibition on products tied to forced labor. The report singled out the Marine Corps and Navy as especially lacking in the vetting of their seafood. The report proposed that the Defense Dept offer better guidance to purchasing officers to ensure they more closely adhere to the relevant rules.

Two U.S. senators urged the Secretary of Commerce to ban Chinese seafood claiming that illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in China’s seafood industry was harmful to U.S. workers and a threat to national security. They cited the use of Uyghur and North Korean forced labor in the Chinese seafood-processing industry, which were exposed in a series of Outlaw Ocean Project investigations.

U.S. lawmakers are pushing to eliminate China-sourced seafood from military supply chains as part of a renewed legislative effort to address the Chinese government’s repression and abuse of the Uyghur minority. According to SeafoodSource, the move is a direct response to reporting by the Outlaw Ocean Project, which uncovered the use of forced Uyghur labor in Chinese seafood processing plants.

Senator Dan Sullivan and Representative Chris Smith sent a letter to six cabinet secretaries in the Trump administration, urging action to block seafood imports linked to forced labor. Citing investigations by The Outlaw Ocean Project, the lawmakers called for stronger enforcement and procurement rules to prevent U.S. agencies from buying seafood tied to human rights abuses in China’s fishing industry.

In Senate testimony, Greg Poling—Director and Senior Fellow at CSIS, where he leads the Southeast Asia Program and the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative—called illegal fishing a national security threat and emphasized its links to human trafficking and modern slavery. He cited the U.S. ban on the Chinese vessel Zhen Fa 7, prompted by an Outlaw Ocean Project investigation, as a key example of how investigative journalism like Ian Urbina’s has exposed forced labor in global fishing fleets and shaped U.S. enforcement efforts.

On May 28, 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) against the Chinese fishing vessel Zhen Fa 7, instructing officials to seize any seafood from the vessel entering U.S. ports. The action follows the Outlaw Ocean Project’s investigation that revealed forced labor in China’s distant water squid fishing fleet. Zhen Fa 7 was one of the Chinese-flagged vessels documented in the Outlaw Ocean Project’s reporting.

On March 13, 2025, four Indonesian fishers sued Bumble Bee Foods in U.S. federal court, alleging forced labor and human trafficking on vessels supplying its albacore tuna. The lawsuit cites abuse, starvation, and withheld wages, and references the Outlaw Ocean Project’s broader work on seafood industry labor abuses, though none of the vessels named in the case are directly tied to its reporting.

CNN investigated the growing issue of Chinese fishing vessels operating illegally off Argentina’s coast, particularly within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), threatening the marine ecosystem and local fishermen. CNN used the Bait-to-Plait tool from The Outlaw Ocean Project to identify fishing vessels involved in illicit practices, drawing on the project's aggregated information on human rights abuses and illegal fishing activities.

The Seafood Working Group (SWG) wrote a letter to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) expressing concern that MSC certification is enabling companies to conceal labor abuses in their supply chains and citing the Outlaw Ocean Project investigation that raised concerns about forced labor in MSC-certified processing facilities. The SWG argues that MSC’s reliance on unverified self-reports, ineffective fishery-level audits, and its failure to address labor violations unless formally confirmed through legal processes have allowed exploitation to persist. The group also critiques MSC’s financial model, which relies heavily on the fishing industry and undermines its ability to ensure labor rights. The SWG called on MSC to publicly acknowledge the limitations of its certification, warned companies not to rely on MSC alone for labor rights protections, and supported legally binding solutions such as collective bargaining agreements for workers. The SWG members include Global Labor Justice (GLJ), International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), Humanity United, Freedom Fund, and Greenpeace U.S.

An article on the Corporate Accountability Lab website critiqued the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for deceiving consumers into believing that its certified seafood is sustainable and ethically sourced, despite evidence of forced labor and human rights abuses in MSC-certified fisheries. The article cited the Outlaw Ocean Project investigation about forced Uyghur labor in ten MSC-certified facilities in China.

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) launched its first-ever Trade Strategy to Combat Forced Labor, focusing on the seafood supply chain and addressing issues like illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and forced labor. The strategy aims to use trade tools to reduce forced labor in U.S. supply chains, with a strong emphasis on preventing seafood caught with forced labor from entering the market. Seafood Source cited the “bombshell report” by the Outlaw Ocean Project that revealed extensive evidence of Uyghur and forced labor in the seafood supply chain in October 2023, which led to action by dozens of U.S. companies and requests to place Chinese companies under Magnitsky sanctions and continued pushes by NGOs and U.S. government officials to combat forced labor in the seafood labor.

In January 2025, the Congressional-Executive Commission on North Koreans in China, released a report highlighting the rising recruitment of North Korean workers, in particular young women, in the seafood industry in Liaoning, in direct violation of the UN Security Council resolutions and US law. The report cited prior reporting by the Outlaw Ocean Project published in the New Yorker revealing the widespread use of such workers in China to produce seafood, some of which bound for the US, in violation of federal US law.

The Southern Shrimp Alliance submitted a petition to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to add Rongcheng Sanyue Foodstuff Co. to its Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List due to its involvement in forced labor practices and attempts to export Argentinian red shrimp to the U.S. despite refusing FDA inspections. The letter mentions the Outlaw Ocean Project‘s “detailed exposé” documenting the pervasive use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry.

The Hamilton Spectator, one of Canada's largest newspapers, published an opinion piece by Sarah Teich, co-founder and president of Human Rights Action Group. Teich discussed the findings of the Outlaw Ocean Project investigation on the human rights abuses throughout China's supply chain and how tainted products reach Canadian shelves. She urged Canada to use its sanctions regime to prevent complicity in these abuses and block such products from entering the country.

The Congressional Research Service, a U.S. federal agency that supports Congress with in-depth and reliable legislative research, published a report on Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. The report cited the Outlaw Ocean Project’s recent investigation, which highlighted abuses on distant water fishing vessels and their link to IUU fishing activities.

Oceana, a nonprofit ocean conservation organization, called on the European Commission to require more consumer information on processed seafood. The organization pointed out that labels on products, such as canned tuna, fish fingers or surimi, lack key information such as species name, origin, catching or production method. Oceana mentioned the recent Outlaw Ocean Project investigation that revealed that European companies, as well as a company supplying the European Parliament, were importing seafood products from China, with possible links to forced labor at sea and in fish processing plants.

Above Ground, a Canadian NGO that advocates for corporate accountability for Canadian companies, recently published a report about forced labor in Canada’s international seafood supply chains. The report examines links between Canadian seafood imports and forced labor, the government’s policy response, and outlines how Canada could better protect the rights of workers in fisheries, including by adopting a strong human rights due diligence law. The report cites the Outlaw Ocean's recent reporting on the Chinese seafood industry and uses the bait-to-plate tool to identify over twenty Canadian seafood importers that have sourced from Chinese vessels or plants where forced labor is reportedly used. These importers supply dozens of retailers across the country, including some of Canada's largest chains.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) Bureau of International Labor Affairs' (ILAB) released their annual list of countries and products shown to have high rates of international labor violations and placed India shrimp into the “forced labor” category. Among the sources cited for ILAB's determination on Indian shrimp is the Outlaw Ocean Project’s investigation about the Indian shrimp industry.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers, led by House Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva, asked the Biden administration to investigate and show evidence of efforts to stem illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing across the global economy. The group also asked for responses to recent reporting including the Outlaw Ocean Project’s series of articles about India and China’s seafood industries. In a press release, the lawmakers requested information from eight federal agencies “to help assess how they are responding to the new information from the Outlaw Ocean Project and others.”