Thai Prawn Aquaculture

Front Page of an EJFoundation report and film on the Thai Trafficking Isuue

       When it comes to the harvesting of shellfish an American may call to mind the fishing industries of such areas of the Gulf South,coastal New England, Alaska, and various other areas of America where such aquaculture has great economic impact. However, it is no mystery that supermarkets don’t often carry foods that are procured locally, but rather from greatly distant areas. For example, the world’s top four retailers all buy shrimp raised on a particular product from Thailand, the country with the third most valuable seafood exports in the world. And this seafood industry, what the whole GDP is essentially built on, is made on the backs of enslaved (mostly)migrant workers.

       These four retailers all make claims to abhor slave labour, and yet when pressed on such issues usually make claims that large supply chains make it hard to tell what is going on, let alone be accountable for it. And this is why there can still be a slavery problem here. The research is done; the retailers know about it. The only excuse to buy the fruit of slave labour is because to not do so would inflate the price of prawns because workers that are paid a living wage(or any wage at all) would cost more. The government, while it does not have a finite figure, estimates about 300,000 people work in its fishing industry, 90% of which are migrants vulnerable to being trafficked and sold.

     While it is the government’s responsibility to tackle this problem, it is a problem that’s creation is largely a result of commercial interests, and thus, if large scale retailers greatly limit dealings with such companies involved in trafficking, and push for change in the industry, change will start to become viable. In terms of what the average American can do, while changing one’s shopping list to not have prawns entirely, or only getting locally sourced prawns, to do so would be to actively not contribute to products that are a result of, and therefore support, slave labour.

Information used, in addition to work pictured above also from The Guardian, here and here.