Walmart, Tesco and Costco questioned over slavery in Thailand’s seafood export sector

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/10/walmart-tesco-and-costco-questioned-over-slavery-in-thailands-seafood-export-sector/



Walmart, Tesco and Costco questioned over slavery in Thailand’s seafood export sector
By Felicity Lawrence, The Guardian
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 9:58 EDT

The Thai food giant CP Foods says it sells prawns to many leading supermarkets in the US, UK and across Europe.

The Guardian identified several of its customers and traced CP prawns to all of the top four global retailers – Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco – and other big-name supermarkets including Morrisons, the Co-operative, Aldi and Iceland.

~snip~

The supermarket sector has been aware of conditions on some Thai fishing vessels for a while, thanks to reports from the UN and NGOs. In a 2009 survey by the UN inter-agency project on human trafficking (UNIAP) 59% of migrants who had been trafficked on to Thai fishing boats said they had seen the murder of a fellow worker.

The Environmental Justice Foundation also reported on slavery and forced labour imposed by violence on Thai trawlers and alleged police collusion.

Retailers have focused, however, on abuses that came to light further up the Thai prawn supply chain – in processing and packing factories or in companies subcontracted to peel prawns. It seems the parlous state of fish stocks and the pressure to monitor supply chains for sustainabilityhas made the issue of slavery visible. Two retailers who did not wish to be named said that when they started to look at where fish for prawn feed was coming from, it became clear that the boats engaged in illegal fishing were also likely to be using trafficked forced labour.

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Read all about it --> http://www.ejfoundation.org/shrimp/hiddencostrelease