Shrimp. While much of its association links to the delectable dishes on your plate, the darker side to where shrimp comes from is altogether complex and disturbing.
A low cost for consumers, a high price for those at sea.
Technological developments in aquaculture have led to the rapid globalisation of the shrimp supply chain, part of the Blue revolution – the promise to develop aquaculture as an important and highly productive agricultural activity. A promise of unequal distribution.
Shrimp production is largely concentrated in China, Thailand, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico and Ecuador, accounting for almost 80 per cent of the world’s shrimp supply, according to a 2011 report by UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Much focus has documented gross exploitation of workers in the shrimp production industry, particularly of migrant workers in Thailand and Bangladesh, seeking to explain and evaluate the complexities of the global shrimp supply trade, of how pond and plate share an intricate connection.
A six month investigation by The Guardian has led to uncover how some of the world’s big supermarkets are selling shrimps in a supply chain fed by slave labour.
“I’ve seen around 18 or 20 people killed right in front of me.”A migrant shrimp worker on a Thai fishing vessel
This massive invaluable trade in seafood provides billions of dollars in income, but workers are getting the shorter end of the stick with conditions plagued by hazard and excessively low or no wages.
In reality, capitalist interests of businesses have dominated the shrimp industry, resulting in the marginalisation of labourers within the shrimp industry.
From shrimp fishing, shrimp peeling, to shrimp exports, therein lie a whole bulk of costs that no money can redeem.
Abuse, torture and murders are a part of what these migrants have to succumb to on a daily basis. One migrant in the undercover report by The Guardian, speaking on anonymity, said: “They tied up his hands and legs to four boats, and they pulled him apart.”
The worker’s recount highlights the horrors thousands of Thailand’s invisible workforce witness or go through. They are the people behind Thailand’s multi-billion dollar prawn industry, of which 90 per cent of its seafood processing workforce is made up of migrants, according to a paper prepared by Accenture for Humanity United.
Like many Thai ports, it is not only the fish that get moved around, but migrants as well. An international network of human slave trafficking often buys and sells migrants onto illegal fishing boats.
It is common for a migrant worker to be sold from boat to boat and not touch down on land for as long as they have a debt to pay.
“We’re considered worthless. A fish has more value than we do. We’re less than human.”A shrimp worker laments while speaking to the Guardian.
Official Thai records estimate that up to 300,000 people in the Thai working industry with the vast majority consisting of migrants. Only a small fraction are registered, the remaining bulk, ghosts. And ghosts are good business for the corrupt brokers, police and Thai officials who prey on them.
The broker finds migrants for ship captains, who pay them US$760 for each migrant.
Work consist of hauling nets and catching fish for up to 22 hours a day and many survive on nothing more than one plate of rice a day.
Although Thai authorities lack political will to deal with slavery, much of the responsibility relies on the retailers and supermarkets who put the prawns on their shelves. But will actively supporting anti-slavery by not acting be enough to make real change?
“He killed himself, just like he wanted.”A migrant worker and eyewitness
Follow the Supermarket Slave Trail here:
