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View all search resultsWaiting for Godot: The case for ratification of ILO convention on work in fishing
For decades, Indonesia has led the world in defining the law of the sea and the rights of its workers. Now, as the 2026 ratification deadline for the ILO Convention 188 looms, the nation must decide if it will remain a global trendsetter or leave its millions of fishers waiting for a "Godot" that never arrives.
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Victims of a fishing boat fire are evacuated to the Belawan Port in Medan on April 7. The fire killed three fishermen and five others were missing while 13 fishermen were rescued by a nearby fishing vessel. (Courtesy of Kodaeral I/-)
S
usilo, an Indonesian migrant fisher from Tegal in Central Java who works on a foreign fishing vessel, and Badu, an Indonesian fisher working on a domestic vessel, have almost certainly never heard of Godot - the character at the heart of Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play, Waiting for Godot. They have likely never heard of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention 188 (C188) on Work in Fishing, either.
But Indonesian nongovernmental organizations and trade unions that have spent the last decade advocating for stronger protections for fishers like Susilo and Badu - and demanding that Indonesia ratify C188 - know exactly how Vladimir and Estragon must have felt.
At the 2025 International Labor Day commemoration in Jakarta, standing before the leaders of Indonesia’s trade union confederations, President Prabowo Subianto committed to several labor reforms. Chief among them was the ratification of ILO Convention 188. As we approach the one-year anniversary of that public pledge, reputable online news outlets report there has been only one formal follow-up.
In late September 2025, the Manpower Ministry convened a high-level tripartite meeting on the fishing sector. Attendees included the manpower minister, the director general of capture fisheries (representing the marine affairs and fisheries minister), senior officials from relevant ministries, top leaders from trade unions and NGOs and representatives of the Indonesian Employers’ Association. On behalf of the participants, the minister and the director general publicly reaffirmed Indonesia’s commitment, taking a significant step forward by announcing a 2026 ratification timeframe.
Indonesia has several compelling reasons to expedite this process. First and foremost is the need to improve services and protections for Indonesian fishers. The 2024 ILO - BRIN study, “Understanding Working Conditions of Fishers in Indonesia”, estimates that 2.36 million people were employed in capture marine fishing in 2021 - roughly 1.3 percent of the working population. The survey uncovered serious systemic problems regarding recruitment, employment contracts, rest hours, social security and occupational safety.
For Indonesian migrant fishers on foreign vessels, the outlook is equally bleak. Even obtaining up-to-date, integrated official data on their numbers remains a major challenge - a red flag. According to the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Ministry (KP2MI), more than 32,000 Indonesian migrant fishers were placed under the "P-to-P" scheme between 2011 and 2025.
However, this figure accounts only for KP2MI’s data. The Transportation Ministry, also involved in placement, maintains its own separate records; the two ministries have yet to synchronize their data, let alone their operations.
