Catherwood LibraryILR School

Much of the shrimp in American and British supermarkets comes from Thailand’s fishing industry, which nets $7.3 billion per year. Thailand continues to face mounting international pressure for its human trafficking violations, with the European Union recently threatening a trade ban if Thailand does not address overfishing and labor violations. The Thai government instituted new regulations and fines for fishing operators who fail to register boats, equipment, and migrant employees, which resulted in higher seafood prices and protest strikes by fishing operators in 22 provinces in early July. Despite the regulations, some fishing operators are resorting to ferrying human labor to sell them to other fishing boats, often with the knowledge of Thai state officials, due to the lack of profits in fishing. The slaves are migrants trying to escape ethnic cleansing in Burma, who are held for ransom in jungle prison camps in Thailand before being sold as slave labor. The extent of abuses became internationally publicized last month, when hundreds of starving migrants were initially refused entry to Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The open-air prison camps, where many are reportedly raped, tortured, and beaten to death, were discovered to have mass graves.