If you’re wondering what to throw on your BBQ tonight, I would suggest leaving the shrimp at the supermarket. I know, beef has gotten a lot of bad press, but it’s peanuts compared with the report that was recently made public. The Solidarity Center, an organization that investigates human rights of workers, found some less savory practices in several South Asian Shrimp processing plants:
“Sexual and physical abuse, debt bondage, child labor and unsafe working conditions are common in Thailand and Bangladesh’s shrimp processing factories, the Solidarity Center said in a 40-page report.
Workers told Thai police who raided one factory in September 2006 “that if they made a mistake on the shrimp peeling line, asked for sick leave, or tried to escape, they could expect to be beaten, sexually molested, or publicly tortured,” according to the report. The plant, Ranya Paew, “was more like a fortress than a factory, with 16-foot-high barbed-wire capped walls, an armed guard force, and an extensive internal closed-circuit television system,” the Solidarity Center alleged, citing Thai police reports”. (source: CNN)
Would you like some sauce with that?
Of course, it gets better. A sizable percentage of all shrimp ends up in, you guessed it, the United States. Americans apparently consume, on average, three pounds of shrimp annually.
One of the happy places where people buy this shrimp is Wal-Mart. Contacted by CNN, they claimed not to know much about all this, but their official response was telling. “Food safety is a priority,” they claimed.
Food safety? What the hell? This isn’t about food safety, you morons; it’s about real people, human beings getting beaten, abused, trampled, for less than a goddamn penny a pound! What’s wrong with you!
It would be so refreshing if, one of these days, some corporate jackass would come out and say: “this is atrocious, and we will absolutely refuse to sell one more shrimp that is imported over the backs of these mistreated workers.”
But that would take balls, and Wal-Mart doesn’t have any.
I recommend reading the complete article, and then changing your diet as well as your shopping habits:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/23/shrimp.workers.report/index.html?iref=newssearch
Thank God for making shrimp not kosher.
1 response so far ↓
criticaldemocracy // April 27, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Money and Technology are wedges between people. The Shrimp industry is just one example.
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