Imports from China’s seafood industry are produced with forced labour, says report
An investigation finds human rights violations in China’s distant-water fishing industry and seafood-processing plants, workers at Gulf State locations of Western companies allege labour abuse, and Cargill is convicted for child labour in its supply chain.
China’s distant-water fishing fleet is rife with labour trafficking, debt bondage, violence, criminal neglect and death, while its seafood-processing plants use the forced labour of North Koreans, Uyghurs and other Muslim minority populations, according to a report by non-profit organization The Outlaw Ocean Project. During a four-year investigation, researchers heard first-hand accounts of beatings, the non-treatment of infections, injuries and illnesses, withholding of documentation, isolation and lack of contact with the outside world, excessive working hours, and dangerous working conditions, with many workers stating that they were held on ships against their will.
According to court documents and investigations by Chinese news outlets, labourers are often lured with promises of lucrative contracts only to discover that they incur a series of fees — sometimes amounting to more than a month’s wages — to cover expenses such as travel, job training, crew certifications, and protective workwear. Often, they pay these fees by taking out loans from recruitment agencies, creating a form of debt bondage and making it almost impossible to leave despite their treatment. Companies also confiscate passports and extract fines for leaving jobs, further trapping workers. And even those who are willing to risk penalties are sometimes in essence held captive on ships, the report states.
In the past few decades, China has dramatically expanded its distant-water fishing fleet, partly in an effort to project its influence abroad. Chinese firms now own or operate terminals in 95 foreign ports and, while China claims to have 2,700 distant-water fishing ships, public records and satellite imaging suggest the number may be closer to 6,500. The country catches more than five billion pounds of seafood a year through distant-water fishing and its seafood industry is estimated to be worth more than US$35 billion, the report suggests.
While the state owns much of the industry and oversees the rest through the Overseas Fisheries Association, it divulges little information about its vessels, and some stay at sea for more than a year at a time making them difficult to inspect. However, the investigation found that between 2018 and 2022 China gave more than US$17 million in subsidies to companies whose ships seem to have engaged in fishing crimes or had deaths or injuries on board – some of which were likely the result of unsafe labour conditions, the authors say.
Furthermore, like the boats that supply them, Chinese seafood-processing plants rely on forced labour, the report states, including that of North Korean citizens who are sent by their government to work in factories in China and are often subjected to heavy monitoring and strictly limited in their movements. UN sanctions ban such uses of North Korean workers but, according to a report by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, at least 450 were working in seafood plants in one Chinese city in which tens of thousands of North Koreans are known to be living. And the investigation found that, in the past five years, thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been sent to work in seafood-processing plants as part of China’s state-imposed labour-transfer program.
While the U.S. has strict laws forbidding the importation of goods produced with North Korean or Uyghur labour, the report estimates that companies employing Uyghurs and North Koreans have recently exported 47,000 tonnes of seafood, including shipments to dozens of American importers. And, it says, at least six plants likely to have processed catch from a boat reportedly using forced labour exported large volumes of seafood to hundreds of American restaurant chains, grocery stores, and food-service companies during the investigation. Meanwhile importers linked with Uyghur labour supply the worlds’ largest fish-processing factory, owned by British-American Nomad Foods, in Bremerhaven, Germany, the report says. The plant supplies frozen-fish brands to grocery stores across Europe.
Experts say that the U.S. government should block seafood imports from China until American companies can demonstrate that their supply chains are free of abuse. While the U.S. has already investigated the working conditions in a variety of other industries, including solar panels, auto parts, computer chips, palm oil, sugar, and tomatoes, the seafood industry should be next, they say.
Here’s a round-up of other noteworthy news and initiatives:
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has appointed Eleanor Lyons to the position of Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, following an 18-month vacancy. Currently Deputy Children’s Commissioner, Lyons will take up the role in December for a fixed period of three years.
A group of Thai workers caught up in the conflict in southern Israel and Gaza arrived in Bangkok last week, with thousands more registered for evacuation. Tens of thousands of migrant workers, mostly from Thailand and the Philippines, work on Israeli farms or as caregivers, and dozens have so far appeared on the lists of dead, wounded and missing.
Women seeking jobs as domestic workers in the UAE allege they are detained and abused in squalid accommodation, sometimes languishing for months without a salary while recruiters sell them over apps and social media platforms to household employers, according to evidence seen by The Guardian. Women from East Africa and the Philippines recounted their experiences with recruitment agencies, alleging passport confiscation, imprisonment, denial of food, and beatings.
Dozens of contract workers at Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia say they were tricked by recruiting agencies in Nepal and labour supply firms in Saudi Arabia into toiling and living in grueling conditions on low pay. The workers say recruiters falsely promised they would work directly for Amazon when in reality they were paid a fraction of what direct hires earn, required to pay recruitment fees that far exceed the Nepali Government’s limits, and subjected to unfair practices.
And nearly 100 migrant labourers from Asia have told investigative journalists of being subjected to repressive labour practices while working at Persian Gulf locations of McDonald’s, Chuck E. Cheese and InterContinental Hotels Group. The current and former workers say independent employment agents in their home countries coerced them into paying exorbitant recruitment fees, while labour contractors and workplace supervisors in Saudi Arabia and other destination countries subjected them to abuses including confiscating their passports and limiting their freedom to leave their jobs.
Multinational company Cargill has been convicted by a labour court in Brazil for slave and child labour practices on its suppliers’ cacao plantations. Brazil’s Labour Prosecution Service claimed that the multinational is responsible, since it “pretended not to see” the use of child and slave-like labour by its cacao suppliers. The conviction is the result of a Public Civil Action demanding that the entire cacao supply chain is held accountable, including industries that purchase raw material from rural producers caught with violations. Cargill can appeal the decision. For more information on child labour in the cocoa supply chain, see last week’s news feature.
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