A blockbuster investigative report in The Guardian reveals that
the Thai shrimp/prawn fishing industry is powered by a brutal system of slavery
through which trafficked workers are bought and sold by captains who
starve, beat and murder them in sadistic displays intended to inspire
fear in the remaining workforce. The major companies who import Thai
prawns, like CP Foods, and their customers, which includes most major
grocery stores, admit that there is a problem, but they do not conduct
audits that go "all the way to the end of the supply chain." An
anonymous Thai government spokesman claims that the problem could be
easily dealt with, but there is no political will to do so.
"I thought I was going to die," said Vuthy, a former monk from Cambodia
who was sold from captain to captain. "They kept me chained up, they
didn't care about me or give me any food … They sold us like animals,
but we are not animals – we are human beings."
Another trafficking victim said he had seen as many as 20 fellow slaves
killed in front of him, one of whom was tied, limb by limb, to the bows
of four boats and pulled apart at sea.
"We'd get beaten even if we worked hard," said another. "All the
Burmese, [even] on all the other boats, were trafficked. There were so
many of us [slaves] it would be impossible to count them all."
CP Foods – a company with an annual turnover of $33bn (£20bn) that
brands itself as "the kitchen of the world" – sells its own-brand prawn
feed to other farms, and supplies international supermarkets, as well as
food manufacturers and food retailers, with frozen or cooked prawns and
ready-made meals. It also sells raw prawn materials for food
distributors.
In addition to Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco, the Guardian has
identified Aldi, Morrisons, the Co-operative and Iceland as customers of
CP Foods. They all sell frozen or cooked prawns, or ready meals such as
prawn stir fry, supplied by CP Foods and its subsidiaries. CP Foods
admits that slave labor is part of its supply chain.
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