TITLE: Non-profit publishes damning report on Indian shrimp sector
https://thefishsite.com/articles/non-profit-launches-damning-report-on-indian-shrimp-sector
EXCERPT: The report was published this week by Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL), which claims that its “multi-year field investigations and interviews provide some of the first documentation of the widespread abusive and dangerous labour and environmental practices in the Indian shrimp sector – including shrimp products certified to be socially and environmentally responsible by the industry’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification programs.”
The report notes that Indian shrimp aquaculture is a multi-billion-dollar industry that relies on the US market, including supermarkets such as Costco, Kroger and Walmart, and restaurants such as Red Lobster that source shrimp from Sysco and US Foods.
“The report’s findings are meaningful because shrimp is the most consumed seafood in the United States, and India is the largest country supplier of shrimp to the US market, providing 40.8 percent of all shrimp imports in 2023,” CAL states in a press release.
“Human rights and environmental abuses in global shrimp aquaculture have been documented for over a decade. Yet, India – despite its huge market share – has remained under the radar. Indian shrimp have been considered a ‘low-risk’ source, even with telltale signs of abuse,” they add.
The report includes examples of workers subjected to debt bondage, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, hazardous working conditions, and company-restricted movement.
“Forced labour was common and even hazardous child labour was observed,” it claims.
The study describes the convoluted, informal supply chains make it difficult to trace the origin of Indian shrimp products, contributing to the persistence of labour and environmental abuses.
TITLE: AP finds grueling conditions in Indian shrimp industry that report calls ‘dangerous and abusive’
https://apnews.com/article/india-shrimp-seafood-industry-labor-abuses-us-imports-e5b51878eafbb6e28977710b191eb7de
EXCERPT: At one tin-roofed processing shed, AP journalists observed dozens of women working in unsanitary and dangerous conditions. The shrimp, pulled from outdoor ponds in barrels, were swished around by hand in grimy water. Once rinsed, they were dumped onto ice-covered tables, where women stood, peeling them one shrimp at a time. Many handled shrimp with bare hands. Some women had bandages on injured fingers. Some women’s long hair dangled into the shrimp.
The shrimp at this facility were later loaded in large plastic crates into a truck with the brand “NEKKANTI” painted in large letters. Managers at the small shed said Nekkanti Sea Foods and other major brands often outsource the labor-intensive peeling and deveining work to keep down costs.
Nekkanti, however, says all its shrimp is processed in a handful of massive company-owned processing facilities approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A marketing video produced by Nekkanti, which is projecting $150 million in revenues this year, shows shrimp peelers in a spotless room, with shiny tables, and workers wearing gloves, head coverings, face masks, rubber boots and waterproof aprons.
John Ducar, an advisor to the board of Nekkanti Sea Foods, said the company had nothing to do with the peeling shed that AP visited and said their branded truck was there only because it was being leased to another company. He provided a document that said Nekkanti was paid $3,600 for the four-month lease of a truck with the license number the AP observed.
“It appears that you observed the operations of an entirely separate company,” he said.
The company named in the document did not respond to a request for comment.
Though Nekkanti had no connection to the shed or the shipment observed by the AP, Ducar said, the company will work to improve conditions at neighboring shrimp sheds and is reconsidering leasing its trucks.
U.S. trade records show Nekkanti shipped more than 726 U.S. tons of farmed shrimp from India to the U.S. in the past year, according to ImportGenius trade data. Records show shipments went to major American seafood distributors including AJC International Inc., Eastern Fish, CenSea, Jetro Cash & Carry Enterprises, King & Prince Seafood, Red Chamber Co. and Rich Products Corp. Those companies, in turn, sell Indian shrimp under popular brand names including Costar, Good & Gather, Great Value and Mrs. Friday’s at supermarkets, box stores and restaurants across the U.S.
Importers that responded to requests for comment about possible labor abuses said they would investigate, with some suspending business in the meantime.
“We at Rich Products treat these allegations with the utmost seriousness,” said the owners of frozen SeaPak brand shrimp. “We are always fully prepared to investigate any allegations and take decisive corrective measures in response to any substantiated claims.”
Alongside a busy highway last month, men pulled nets of shrimp from shrimp ponds that had been dug into fields and mangroves, destroying critical ecosystems. Local villagers said the growing industry hasn’t just brought abusive working conditions, it’s also damaging their environment.
The massive, murky ponds and their toxic algae, chemicals and sewage have made it impossible to grow crops and poisoned their water, they said. Investigators from CAL say antibiotic use is widespread to control disease outbreaks. Antibiotic use in shrimp farming and other agriculture can lead to rising drug-resistant infections, a growing problem in the U.S.
“Essentially, we feel lost,” said Areti Vasu, a farmer who said he was badly beaten and jailed during failed protests that sought to stop the development of a 57-acre shrimp processing and cold storage plant adjacent to his rice fields. “Our lives, our land, our farming pride, fresh air, and clean water – everything is lost. We are destined to live here in disgrace.”
Jonnalagaruvu village vice president Koyya Sampath Rao initially helped build the massive facility, ignoring warnings from environmentalists.
“Sadly their predictions came true,” he said. “Our water streams are now polluted, farmland is turning barren, yields are shrinking, and the night air is thick with pollutants.”
Official complaints about a lack of environmental impact studies and coastal regulation violations have usually been dismissed by Indian authorities.
Among the trucks being loaded with the shrimp at a pond in the village was one with a large sign: “Wellcome KingWhite.” In the past year Wellcome shipped 3,800 tons of shrimp to the U.S., according to ImportGenius trade data. The records show these include distributors Great American Seafood Imports Co., Pacific Coral Seafood and Ore-Cal.
Sysco, the nation’s largest food distributor, has imported in the past from both Nekkanti and Wellcome. A spokesperson said they stopped doing business with Wellcome in 2022 after the Indian firm “refused to allow us to conduct a required social responsibility audit in their facility.” Wellcome did not respond to requests for comment.
The Sysco spokesperson said the company suspended receipt of any products from Nekkanti after AP’s query this month, and would immediately begin an investigation.
Sysco “will continue to hold all its suppliers to the highest standards of labor and human rights,” the company said in a statement.
TITLE: ‘A fishing accident blinded me but I was forced to keep working’: abuses faced by workers who catch our fish
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/13/fishing-industry-worker-abuse
EXCERPT: Thea Lee, the deputy secretary for international labor affairs at the US Department of Labor, told the Guardian the government agency was pushing to close enforcement gaps, promote guidance for marine authorities and inspectors to look for labor violations, and utilize the purchasing power of the US government to push for changes in seafood supply chains. The Biden administration is also using international sanctions to push out illegal fishing vessels that propagate human rights abuses of workers.
“Fishing is just an extraordinarily problematic industry,” said Lee. “There are so many things about it both physically and economically that make it very, very vulnerable and it’s not just child labor and forced labor but every other problem, in particular safety and health violations, but also freedom of association, collective bargaining, all the fundamental labor rights and discrimination. Every fundamental labor right is probably broken a lot.”
With corporations performing self-audits on labor abuses in their supply chains and large gaps in data on the industry, there is a need for worker-centered solutions and governments to work together, said Lee.
“The onus is really on governments and corporations to fix this problem,” added Lee. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”
Adrei Nelwan worked as a migrant fisher from Indonesia for Taiwan deep-sea fishing vessels from 1995 until 2021 when he was deported after suffering a severe eye injury on the job. Despite his injury, he was forced to continue working for a month to receive medical care.
Taiwan exported $139m of seafood to the US in 2020, sold by retailers including Walmart and Costco and seafood brands such as Bumblebee Tuna. Taiwan has the second largest distance water fishing fleet in the world, behind China.