Exploitation of enslaved people may be hiding behind the supply of Thai shrimp to supermarkets around the world. Giant supermarket chains-such as Walmart, Carrefour, Costco, Tesco, Aldi-may be the end point of inhumane violence against the Rohingya, a stateless people persecuted in the Burmese state of Rakhine, where they have settled.
The plight of the Rohingya
Hunted and rejected everywhere, many Rohingya are victims of human trafficking. Raped, killed or sold as slaves on Thai fishing vessels, which supply shrimp and prawns to our stores. This is denounced by the petition addressed to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to intervene to break this chain of suffering.
Sign the petition
GIFT, Food Times and DO adhere to the petition, and invite all their readers to support it-signing-and to propagandize in turn. In line with our primary guiding value:
‘All food production, wherever it is located, must fully preserve workers, labor organizations and their rights, local communities and food sovereignty, the environment and animal welfare.’
Denunciation and struggle
In addition to expressing our outrage, we cheer revolt.
We demand that:
– brands of canned fish based on the procurement of ‘slave fish’ be published. ‘Name & Shame;
– the heads of all their senior executives – starting with that of the Global CEO, who by definition ‘could not have been unaware’ – on the tables of the defendants, before being removed forever from the relevant posts. Their names-with clarification of company and role-published on the registry of perpetual shame, to be established at ILO;
– Exemplary reparations from these cloisters of crony-capitalism to the affected populations must express multiple measures of the total turnover of the product lines affected by the havoc.
In the meantime, and until reparations are actually carried out, we will promote and maintain boycott actions on all products traceable to multinational slavery corporations.
Dario Dongo
GIFT, Food Times, FARE, founder
