Update: Indonesian Police Arrest 7 in Seafood Slavery Case

In 2015, slavery in the fish trade is alive and well.

In a recent Chicago Tribune article, this shocking practice was brought to light. Burmese slaves, locked in cages on a small tropical island called Benjina, are forced to fish for seafood and their catch finds its way into the major supply chains—affecting supermarkets, restaurants, and even your cat’s food.

The Associated Press documented information from 40 current and former slaves on the island and followed a single shipment of slave-caught seafood from the island. That shipment included squid, snapper, grouper, and shrimp. The slaves have two simple requests: They want to go home. And they want Americans to know that they’re eating fish caught by humans who are kept in cages, forced to work in dangerous conditions 20 to 22 hours a day, and are starved and beaten (sometimes with the tail of a stingray, complete with toxic stinger) if they complained or tried to rest.

When the shipment was tracked, it was found that the slave-caught cargo got mixed in with other catches at many other sites in Thailand, including some processing plants. The records from U.S. Customs indicate that a number of those plants ship to America, Europe and other Asian nations. Only the U.S. records were viewable because they are public.

When questioned, the major corporations identified as collaborators in the practice issued strong statements condemning the practice of using slaves. The U.S. government and some major business owners have issued statements urging the Thai government to crack down on slavery in the fleets, and to punish those who force these workers—these slaves—to catch seafood that ends up on our dinner plates or in Fluffy’s bowl of Fancy Feast, Meow Mix or Iams.

Last year, the State Department blacklisted Thailand for “failing to meet minimum standards in fighting human trafficking.” Thailand’s deputy prime minister, Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, denied that there were any slaves who worked on boats flying the flag of Thailand. He claims that the problems occurred in Indonesia. 

Thai Union Manufacturing was one of the companies who received cargo from the shipment the AP tracked. They’re not exactly a household name; they’re a subsidiary of Thai Union Frozen products, the largest seafood corporation in Thailand. Their annual sales are about $3.5 billion. Still not a household name, right? Thai Union, the parent company, owns some companies whose names you will recognize: Chicken of the Sea and, soon, Bumblebee (they’re in the process of acquiring that company). The AP is quick to note that they didn’t see any tuna in the shipment they were tracking.

Thai Union says that one of their major direct clients is Wal-Mart. They also indicated that they ship “thousands of cans” of cat food to the U.S. every month. They issued a statement saying that they terminated ties with a supplier “after determining it might be involved with forced labor and other suppliers” though they didn’t name that supplier.

As a result of the AP’s investigation, approximately 300 of the fishermen in the village of Benjina accepted the Indonesian Fisheries Ministry’s offer to be taken to temporary shelters on the island of Tual; the process of getting these men home has begun. The Ministry is also working to find others who are still trapped.

It’s not easy to tell where your fish comes from and who fished for it. This same shipment tracked by the AP can show up in your grocer’s frozen fish section in a bag or box slapped with a store-brand label and you’d never know the history of the contents of the bag. 

One former slave, Hla Phyo, said that it used to be that supervisors just tossed human bodies overboard if someone died at sea. Now that companies and authorities require that everyone on the roster be accounted for when the boats return, “captains began stowing corpses alongside the fish in ship freezers” till they arrived back in Benjina.

Think about that the next time you peruse a restaurant menu, shop for your next seafood dinner, or look for a sale on Fluffy’s canned food.

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Relephant: 

Fishing for a Mindful Life.

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Author: Pat Perrier

Editor: Caroline Beaton

Photo: Flickr