A recent investigation has revealed evidence that China’s distant-water fishing fleet, the world’s biggest in scale, commits environmental and labor abuses in the southwest Indian Ocean off the coast of East Africa.

“There was no such word as ‘rest’ on Chinese fishing vessels,” explained a former crew member to a group of investigators from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a London-based NGO. “If there were a lot of fish, the work could be up to 22 hours long.”

The testimony was part of a recently released report

by the EJF accusing China’s fishing fleets of environmental and human rights abuses in the southwestern Indian Ocean.

As a leading fishing nation, China’s distant water fishing (DWF) industry is the world’s largest in both catch volume and fleet size. And according to the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Index, China ranks as the worst offender among 152 countries worldwide.