Consumers and workers already doubtful of the benefits to Americans of free-trade agreements recently received new cause for alarm. Hard-pressed US seafood producers are competing with at least some imports caught, farmed or processed by slaves. That’s right, slaves.
The recently released US State Department study “Trafficking in Persons: 2014” reported worsening worker abuses, including slavery and coerced labor, in Thailand and Malaysia. Accordingly, the US lowered Thai and Malaysian human rights ratings to the level of North Korea, Syria and Iran. Similar problems persist in China and Vietnam.
In China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, men, women and children are subjected to forced labor. Production of wild caught and farmed seafood was one of several industries cited for labor abuses.
Just how bad are these abuses?
“The recruiting and working conditions of many fishers and seafood industry employees are so egregious that these human and labor rights abuses have been referred to as ‘modern slavery,'” reports the nongovernmental organization Fish Wise, which studies and promotes sustainable seafood practices. Most reports of extreme labor abuse come from Asia, including Thailand, Vietnam and China.
In a July 30 SeafoodSource.com Webinar, Daniel Murphy of the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation said half of Thai seafood workers have reported seeing murder on the job and worker suicide is not uncommon.
Yet, the United States imports 90 percent of the seafood it consumes. Most comes from Asia. China is the largest supplier of tilapia to the United States. Vietnam is our nation’s largest supplier of the cheap, white fish pangasius (basa, tra and swai) and Thailand is a major supplier of shrimp, as are Malaysia and other offending nations.
Sadly, it pays to use slaves. Asia-Pacific nations reap $52 billion in illegal profits each year from forced labor in the private sector, says the International Labor Rights Organization (ILO). And today slaves cost about $90 per head only.
How can US food producers compete with nations using slave labor? Why should they be forced by the US government to do so?
Already, many in Congress are raising questions about the human rights and economic impacts of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership regional free trade agreement. In May, for instance, 153 Democratic members of Congress called on the administration to press for stronger labor standards within the 12 nations pressing for the agreement with the United States.
If they knew, consumers would likely join the call for fair trade and turn up their noses at Asian seafood. Indeed, research published in March by the nonprofit Fish Wise organization (dedicated to sustainable seafood) found:
• 88 percent of consumers surveyed would stop buying a product associated with human rights abuses;
• 70 percent would pay more for a product unconnected to human rights abuses.
Its long past time to run the fast-track, Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement off the rails and into a junk yard.
Jeffrey R. McCord is a free-lance writer on economic issues and author of “Undocumented Visitors in a Pirate Sea,” a quarter-finalist in the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. https://www.amazon.com/UNDOCUMENTED-VISITORS-Investigation-Caribbean-Phenomena-ebook/dp/B00FQ4R91I
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy