Based on a year-long investigation, The Associated Press reports in an expansive feature this morning that slavery is training the global seafood industry. The AP says its investigation included interviews with more than 40 current and former slaves in Benjina, Indonesia, who are made to work as many as 22 hours a day and are held inside a cell of a compound owned by a fishing company.
The AP also documented the journey of a single large shipment of slave-caught seafood from the Indonesian village, including squid, snapper, grouper and shrimp, and tracked it by satellite to a gritty Thai harbor. Upon its arrival, AP journalists followed trucks that loaded and drove the seafood over four nights to dozens of factories, cold storage plants and the country’s biggest fish market.
The men The AP spoke to on Benjina were mostly from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world. They were brought to Indonesia through Thailand and forced to fish. Their catch was shipped back to Thailand, and then entered the global commerce stream.
The report says tainted fish can wind up in the supply chains of some of America’s major grocery stores, such as Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway; as well as the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart; and the biggest food distributor, Sysco. It can find its way into the supply chains of some of the most popular brands of canned pet food, including Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams. It can also turn up as calamari at fine dining restaurants, as imitation crab in a California sushi roll or as packages of frozen snapper relabeled with store brands that land on our dinner tables.
Almost all of three slaves interviewed by The AP described being kicked, beaten or whipped with toxic stingray tails if they complained or tried to rest. They say they live on a few bites of rice and curry each day, and are paid little or nothing. One runaway and former slave, Hlaing Min, says many others have died at sea trying to escape.
“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us. There must be a mountain of bones under the sea,” he says. “The bones of the people could be an island, it’s that many.”
