Asian Slave Labour Producing Prawns For Supermarkets In Us, Uk

[Flashermac]

Slaves forced to work for no pay for years at a time under threat of extreme violence are being used in Asia in the production of seafood sold by major US, British and other European retailers, the Guardian can reveal.

 

A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco.

 

The investigation found that the world's largest prawn farmer, the Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, buys fishmeal, which it feeds to its farmed prawns, from some suppliers that own, operate or buy from fishing boats manned with slaves.

 

Men who have managed to escape from boats supplying CP Foods and other companies like it told the Guardian of horrific conditions, including 20-hour shifts, regular beatings, torture and execution-style killings. Some were at sea for years; some were regularly offered methamphetamines to keep them going. Some had seen fellow slaves murdered in front of them.

 

Fifteen migrant workers from Burma and Cambodia also told how they had been enslaved. They said they had paid brokers to help them find work in Thailand in factories or on building sites. But they had been sold instead to boat captains, sometimes for as little as £250.

 

"I thought I was going to die," said Vuthy, a former monk from Cambodia who was sold from captain to captain. "They kept me chained up, they didn't care about me or give me any food … They sold us like animals, but we are not animals – we are human beings."

 

Another trafficking victim said he had seen as many as 20 fellow slaves killed in front of him, one of whom was tied, limb by limb, to the bows of four boats and pulled apart at sea.

 

"We'd get beaten even if we worked hard," said another. "All the Burmese, [even] on all the other boats, were trafficked. There were so many of us [slaves] it would be impossible to count them all."

 

CP Foods – a company with an annual turnover of $33bn (£20bn) that brands itself as "the kitchen of the world" – sells its own-brand prawn feed to other farms, and supplies international supermarkets, as well as food manufacturers and food retailers, with frozen or cooked prawns and ready-made meals. It also sells raw prawn materials for food distributors.

 

...

 

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour

[Guest]

Supermarkets are very aware what's going on, and the conditions that workers face all over the world. Of course they don't care they are in it just for profit.

 

http://www.theguardi...ica-living-wage

 

Everyone in varying degrees is a slave to the system to work for the gain of others.

[SpiceMan]

But most of us don't face daily beatings and are not chained and don't work for 20 hours per day. I'll be avoiding fish products from the Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods company in future.

[cavanami]

I *** never *** buy anything from CP...

[Guest]

Of course I agree .... I think you would be surprised how many goods you do buy in a supermarket, where workers even those that are not enslaved work under terrible conditions for little pay.

[bust]

This is news? There was a story run years ago and even more recently about this but looks like nothing has changed.

 

http://crooksandliars.com/kenneth-quinnell/walmart-shrimp-supplied-workers-s

http://www.irrawaddy.org/economy/burmese-slave-labor-continues-thailand-despite-bangkok-promises.html

[Flashermac]

It has even been in the Thai papers. You're right, nothing has changed.

 

Might be a big plus for the NCPO is they do something about this. They may be the only one with enough clout to do so.

[Mekong]

I *** never *** buy anything from CP...

 

Hard to believe that you don't utilise True either for TV, Phones or Internet or the fact that you have never made a purchase from a 7-Eleven Store or ever been to a Lotus supermarket.

[Flashermac]

Or eaten in their restaurant chain...

[Guest]

Anti Tesco riots two years ago in UK

 

http://talesfromthel...ayem-in-the-uk/