He told us we were slaves - the fight for justice on a Scottish fishing trawler

An 18-month BBC investigation has documented that 12 crew members on fishing trawlers off Scotland's west coast, including Ghanaian sailor Kwabena Boateng and Filipino crewman Ferdinand Cruz, were made to work under degrading conditions. In an interview with the BBC, Boateng said the skipper had "told us we were slaves." Crew members described 18-hour shifts, withheld wages and physical violence.

The compensation claim, brought to the UK Home Office's Modern Slavery Unit and supported by a Glasgow-based NGO, alleges the boat owner has run irregular foreign-crew recruitment practices for years. Scottish Justice Secretary Angela Constance said the investigation would have full government support and that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency would tighten inspections.

In the UK fishing industry as a whole, an estimated 2,500 foreign-national crew members are at work. The International Labour Organisation has documented the difficulty of monitoring the sector. Lawyers for the boat owner said the allegations were groundless; a decision on whether to launch a formal inquiry will be issued next month.