{"id":1291185,"date":"2023-10-24T20:57:26","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T20:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/seafood-forced-labor-10242023133025.html"},"modified":"2023-10-24T20:57:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T20:57:26","slug":"experts-americans-are-eating-fish-processed-by-slaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/10\/24\/experts-americans-are-eating-fish-processed-by-slaves\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts: Americans are eating fish processed by slaves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

North Korean and Uyghur slaves are processing seafood for Chinese companies that export to the United States, experts and lawmakers told Congress on Tuesday, with customs officials struggling to identify and keep the tainted fish off Americans\u2019 plates.<\/span><\/p>\n

The experts told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that even U.S. military caterers were buying fish caught or processed by laborers trapped in jobs from which they cannot escape \u2013 and who are seldom paid a living wage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such seafood is hard to differentiate from legally caught and processed fish, they said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey and the chair of the committee, said there was ample evidence China-based companies are \u201cexploiting the forced labor of Uyghurs and North Koreans\u201d to undercut international competitors, including in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom fish sticks to calamari, these products infiltrate the supply chains of major restaurants, wholesalers, and even find their way into the meals served in American schools and military bases,\u201d he said, adding that it violated laws like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith said he and Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon who is the co-chair of the commission, had written a joint letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling for an investigation into \u201cthe weakness of our system\u201d in allowing fish to pass customs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tough to trace<\/b><\/p>\n

Ian Urbina, director of The Outlaw Ocean Project, said that seafood, as \u201cthe world's last major source of wild protein,\u201d was \u201ca distinct global commodity\u201d where labor exploitation could be particularly profitable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ENG_CHN_FisheriesSlavery_10242023.2.JPG\"\n
Workers process tilapia fish at a factory in Wenchang, Hainan province, China, June 20, 2018. (Reuters)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Despite being the world\u2019s biggest food commodity by value, he explained, wild seafood is \u201charder to track than many other products\u201d because it is by definition caught far away from the prying eyes of authorities, making it easy to mask slave labor in supply chains.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBetween bait and plate there are an inordinate number of handoffs of this product,\u201d Urbina said. \u201cIt goes from fishing ship to refrigeration ship, to port, to processor, to cold storage, to exporter, to U.S. importer, to distributor or food service company, and then finally to a restaurant, to grocery store or public food pantry, military base or public school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese many handoffs make it tougher to trace the true origin of the catch, and to ensure there is no forced labor or other environmental crimes in the supply chain,\u201d he said. He added the few auditing services that exist \u201cdo a very poor job\u201d at identifying slavery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forced labor in fisheries took place \u201cin two distinct realms,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At sea, he said, it is \u201cendemic\u201d and enforced by debt bondage, human trafficking and beatings, with Indonesians often the victims. But it also occurs at processing plants on China\u2019s coast, using North Koreans as well as Uyghurs transferred from Xinjiang province against their will.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 1,000 workers from Xinjiang have been forcibly relocated to at least 10 seafood processing plants in Shandong that supply dozens of major U.S. food brands,\u201d Urbina said. \u201cThe ethnic minorities pressed into service do not have an option to say no to these jobs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

North Koreans<\/b><\/p>\n

The use of North Koreans to process seafood destined for the United States is a long-running issue, according to Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n

The North Koreans transferred to China face \u201cinhumane working conditions\u201d and are not allowed to contact the outside world, he said, and were only paid a small sum after returning home after years of work, often forced to moonlight for cash while in China.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese companies pay the North Korean regime mostly based on production volume,\u201d Scarlatoiu told the commission .<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMen mainly carry frozen fish blocks and women sit down and peel fish or squid or sort clams and crabs by size. Most of the North Koreans work the whole day in cold storage,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe pungent smell inside is unbearable,\u201d he said. \u201cNorth Korean workers at the Chinese seafood processing plants usually work about 10 hours a day, but if production targets are not met, the workday can extend to over 12 hours.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Scarlatoiu added the true origin of the products of their labor was then often obfuscated to aid its passage to Europe or the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are reported instances of processed seafood marked \u2018Made in China\u2019 being shipped out of Vladivostok, where labels are switched to \u2018Made in Russia,\u2019 and exported to third countries,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Difficult solutions<\/b><\/p>\n

Each of the experts said a solution to the problem would be hard to find, given how difficult it can be at a port-of-entry to differentiate illegally caught or processed seafood from legitimate catches.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Robert Stumberg, a law professor at Georgetown University and expert in trade law, said there was an easy fix to at least part of the problem: \u201cimplement the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act\u201d by blacklisting more companies known to use forced labor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stumberg said the Entity List of Chinese companies banned from exports to the United States due to the use of forced Uyghur labor had grown from 20 to just 27 companies since 2021, despite \u201cthousands of pieces of evidence about other entities\u201d being submitted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thea Lee, deputy undersecretary for international labor affairs at the Department of Labor and a member of the commission, responded that administration officials were trying to \u201cuse those tools that Congress gave us as effectively as we can\u201d without cutting any corners.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt's been very slow going; it's been frustrating, I think, to all of us,\u201d Lee said, adding the department was focussed on figuring out \u201cwhat can withstand legal challenge, [and] what can be as robust as possible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Edited by Malcolm Foster<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n \n \n


\r\nThis content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia<\/a> and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.
<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uyghurs and North Koreans are forced to process seafood destined for the United States, they say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29440,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1786,42699,2242,46105,43393,6511,42620,70720,785,27149,70721,27150],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29440"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1291186,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291185\/revisions\/1291186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}