Trafficked into slavery on Thai trawlers to catch food for prawns

Written on June 15th, 2014 in politics Comments Off

The Thai fishing industry is built on slavery, with men often beaten, tortured and sometimes killed – all to catch ‘trash fish’ to feed the cheap farmed prawns/shrimps sold in the west - Published on The Guardian, June 10, 2014: A six-month Guardian multimedia investigation has, for the first time, tracked how some of the world’s big-supermakets – Tesco, Aldi, Walmart and Morrisons are using suppliers relying on slave labour to put cheap prawns on their shelves. Slavery is back and here’s the proof … Thai ‘ghost ships’ that enslave and even kill workers are linked to global shrimp supply chain, Guardian investigation discovers modern day slavery:    

  • Article – Thailand’s seafood industry: a case of state-sanctioned slavery? by Felicy Lawrence, June 10, 2014:  Slavery is illegal, yet it is driving Thailand’s growth – so why are retailers, producers and governments alike turning a blind eye?
  • Video – Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK, 18.19 min, by Kate Hodal and Chris Kelly in Songkhla and Felicity Lawrence /The Guardian, June 10, 2014;
  • More on this story: trafficked into slavery on Thai trawlers;
  • More on other slavery stories (sex trafficking, Rana Plaza, Quatar, trafficking persons, child labor …);
  • Thailand votes against international forced labour protocol … Qatar and most Gulf states abstain on treaty that requires countries to help victims and punish perpetrators of forced labour, on The Guardian, June 13, 2014 – (my comment: when I was diving in Thailand / the Similand Islands, we lived for days on a ship. I watched a strong contempt of some young Thai dive instructors (obviously out of higher social levels) to their compatriotes, the low staff Thais (less literate people out of the north). Example: Thai dive instructors – after a dive – had robbed away and given us the fine dining specialties put in the corner for low staff food. I see how in Thailand the gap between literate higher class levels and the illiterate northen ethnies is indeed inhuman. No more any secret about Bangkok’s eternal social battles);

See also:

Links:

Bombardment never stops: E. Ukrainian refugees share horrors of Kiev military op, on Russia Today RT, June 13, 2014: Kiev does not care about civilians in eastern Ukraine, and people have to flee their homes amid daily bombings, Ukrainian refugees told RT at a temporary camp in Russia’s Rostov …;

Iraq blocks Twitter, Facebook, YouTube amid growing ISIS threat, on Russia Today RT, June 13, 2014;

Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown, on The Guasrdian, ny Nafeez Ahmed, June 12, 2014: Social science is being militarised to develop ‘operational tools’ to target peaceful activists and protest movements;

uploaded by Al Jazeera English YouTube channel:

and again:

  • The menace of Boko Haram and fundamentalism in Nigeria, on Pambazuka News, by Horace G. Campbelli, June 4, 2014: … ‘I will sell your girls in the market‘ – Abubakar Shekau …: The hardline military approach to Boko Haram by the Nigerian government is inadequate. Boko Haram’s challenge has economic, political and social dimensions that government ignores to the detriment of Nigerians. All progressive forces will now have to wade in to oppose both Boko Haram and the states that provide the enabling conditions for the growth of terror elements …;
  • (my comment: hey guys … with all your military power you are not able to smash these bastards? Or do you intervene definitively only for your damned oil? Or to save the liberal market’s exchanges in dollars? … in any way, soon your game is over! – Heidi);
  • Nigeria Boko Haram crisis: 20 women abducted in north, on BBCnews/Africa, June 10, 2014.

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