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US urged to stop importing fishing nets from Thailand

Organizations cite persistent labor rights violations in the manufacture of fishing gear in Thai prisons
US urged to stop importing fishing nets from Thailand

Thai fishermen haul in a net at sea. (Photo supplied)

Published: February 25, 2022 05:37 AM GMT

Prominent labor and human rights organizations have called on the government of the United States to ensure that fishing nets are not imported from Thailand over persistent labor rights violations in the manufacturing of these nets by local companies.

In a report published last December by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news organization found that many inmates at Thai prisons are forced to make fishing nets for private companies and that non-compliance with orders or failure to meet stringent quotas resulted in the prisoners being punished.

The inmates received little or no pay for their work in what effectively amounted to forced labor, the report said.

“[The officers] would say that if we didn’t make five nets a week, we would be punished,” one former inmate at Surin Central Prison in northeast Thailand was quoted as saying.

“It was 2pm one day and I wasn’t able to finish the nets in time, so I was forced to lie down in the sun and roll over in the dirt [as punishment],” the man added.

In response to these allegations, the Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum and its partner organizations in the Seafood Working Group, a coalition of 31 rights groups that seeks to ensure ethical practices in the seafood industry, have called on the administration of Joe Biden to make sure no fishing nets are imported from Thailand in case prison labor was used in their manufacture.

We do not promote harm or torture and will cut ties with any of the 42 prisons we have contracts with if forced labor is found

“We are calling on US companies to ensure that their suppliers respect workers’ rights and for the US government to ban the import of these nets and all products found to be made with forced prison labor or forced labor of any kind. No worker — including prisoners — should be subjected to forced labor,” said Jennifer Rosenbaum, executive director of the Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum.

Rosenbaum went on to allege that US-based companies might have been turning a blind eye to exploitative practices in Thailand.

“This is just one of many examples of how multinational corporations scour the globe to source the lowest-priced products but absolve themselves of responsibility for the human rights abuses their race to the bottom engenders,” she said.

One of two Thai companies that have been accused of employing prison labor for their production of fishing nets has said it would stop working with prisons that employed forced labor.

A representative of the company, Khon Kaen Fishing Net in northeast Thailand, has said that an outright ban on the import of fishing nets could hurt Thai businesses and low-income earners.

“If a ban is enforced, I am concerned that it will affect Thai businesses and employment, and this might only stem from one to two prisons that acted inappropriately,” the man told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We do not promote harm or torture and will cut ties with any of the 42 prisons we have contracts with if forced labor is found.”

Both Thai prisons and the country’s fishing industry have long been accused of persistent rights abuses.

Prisons are notoriously overcrowded with unsanitary conditions, while Thailand’s fishing industry has been bedeviled by allegations of forced labor targeting disadvantaged Thais and migrant workers from countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia.

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