Posted on 12/14/2015 7:50:28 AM PST by Mount Athos
Every morning at 2 a.m., they heard a kick on the door and a threat: Get up or get beaten. For the next 16 hours, No. 31 and his wife stood in the factory that owned them with their aching hands in ice water. They ripped the guts, heads, tails and shells off shrimp bound for overseas markets, including grocery stores and all-you-can-eat buffets across the United States.
After being sold to the Gig Peeling Factory, they were at the mercy of their Thai bosses, trapped with nearly 100 other Burmese migrants. Children worked alongside them, including a girl so tiny she had to stand on a stool to reach the peeling table. Some had been there for months, even years, getting little or no pay. Always, someone was watching.
More than 2,000 trapped fishermen have been freed this year as a result of an ongoing Associated Press investigative series into slavery in the Thai seafood industry. The reports also have led to a dozen arrests, millions of dollars' worth of seizures and proposals for new federal laws.
Hundreds of shrimp peeling sheds are hidden in plain sight on residential streets or behind walls with no signs in Samut Sakhon, a port town an hour outside Bangkok.
As Tin Nyo Win soon found out for himself, there's no easy escape. One woman had been working at Gig for eight years. Another man ended up peeling shrimp there after breaking free from an equally brutal factory.
"I was shocked after working there a while, and I realized there was no way out,".
U.S. customs records show the shrimp made its way into the supply chains of major U.S. food stores and retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Dollar General and Petco, along with restaurants such as Red Lobster and OliveGarden.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
I’d much rather have grapes peeled by slaves - can’t trust the quality of that foreign shrimp.
Slavery is on the rise around the world.
But most of it is with Islam.
I will not buy ANY shrimp that is not US WILD CAUGHT Atlantic or Gulf. Long past time we got back to buying USA. Don’t buy Talapia either.
And why not tilapia?
(just curious, don’t like it myself, it tastes kinda skanky)
“”””I will not buy ANY shrimp that is not US WILD CAUGHT Atlantic or Gulf. Long past time we got back to buying USA. Don’t buy Talapia either.””””
X2. ‘nuff said.
Welcome to the third world. Nothing ever changes.
Very distressing article. It looks to me like the only way to make things better for these Thai slaves is to make it unprofitable for the owners and suppliers in Thailand. Essentially kill the industry there which is filled with corruption by the US and other western countries boycotting Thai shrimp. But that puts people out of work and has other consequences.
Thanks for posting. I will start paying attention to where my shrimp comes from.
It is skanky. Some fish farms feed Talapia genetically modified corn, resulting in high omega 6, NOT the desirable Omega 3 fatty acids we normally eat fish to obtain. Others add testosterone to the feed to raise male fish which reach market size quicker. Some add hormones to the feed of Talapia and we don’t like hormones added to meat so why eat hormones added to fish? Talapia is something you shouldn’t eat for numerous reasons.
The Thai - Burmese ill will goes back centuries with the refugee flight from Burma giving the Thai the advantage. Thai businessmen (usually Thai-Chinese) are among the worst outside China itself. Not an ounce of compassion when it comes to money. In Phuket or other coastal or island cities you can get seafood caught by local fishermen and it’s fresh.
I wonder what the poor people in these countries would be doing if they were NOT working in factories like the ones described.
Same here.
Additional proof that the condition of slavery requires work.
Ditto for any seafood, e.g., salmon.
They’d be working in the same jobs for pay and would be able to move around for better pay or more likely return home now that Burma has a decent government finally. The Burmese economy is improving.
In addition to your list add Tilapia raised in the Orient are often raised in rice paddies that are “watered and fertilized” by run off from animals or even the local sewage system.
Even without the other reasons, Tilapia are the highest fish in bad cholesterol and good cholesterol is almost absent in them.
You’re right.
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