EU demands Thailand address slavery in its seafood industry

[Wilsonandson]

Chinese New Year will be a national holiday in Thailand the way things are going. The EU and US vs Thailands growing love of China. As the Eagle's power of the world deminishes and the Dragon starts to breath fire all strategies to gather allies in the East are being deployed. Thailand knows this and is milking the world powers for all it can get.

[retarius]

What is it with Thailand? All the stuff about slavery and no action to speak of....yes some people arrested but not yet prosecuted for the Rohingya trafficking and some Thai's rescued from Indonesia.

Apart from that, what is happening? Why aren;t the navy intercepting fishing vehicles? The junta is in charge of the country, has article 44 and can initiate this tomorrow.

There are a number of comments on here hoping that Thailand get a red card, and I don;t want to see Thailand impoverished, but how many blatant cynical fouls can you commit in front of the referee before you get sent off? It's not as though Thailand can bribe the ref. Why aren't we reading headlines about ship owners losing their vessels or about captains sent to jail for using slaves on board? It's a massive problem and no one has yet been found guilty, and we all know that the justice system can move quickly when it wants to, but why no action here. Do they think the EU isn't serious and that the US won't follow suit some time afterwards? I tending to agree that until some big fish feel a downturn in their income nothing will be done about slavery in Thailand. It has to go all the way to the top of society, including cops and military.

[Hawk]

Is that an order or just hot air?

[Yann55]

Just give them the red card. Only thing they understand. Is loss of revenue.

Sure, clockman, and while we're talking about revenue, greed etc. we might as well remember that the world economy is about buying, selling, and making profit on the way. Our Western economies, which were not invented by Thais, have generated a system where companies grow bigger and bigger, and the food industry is no exception. Bigger companies = bigger profits = bigger mistakes = more people 'responsible' = everyone along the line can say 'sorry, but it's not me'.

When we, the 'consumers' at the end of the chain, go to a supermarket in Manchester, Calgary, Melbourne, Frankfurt, Barcelona or Milan, our legitimate concern is to get things that combine quality with an affordable price. This in turn leads the distributors, who fight amongst themselves to gain the biggest share of the market, to find every possible way of lowering their selling prices.

They have a number of options to do that, and the most profitable one, obviously, is not to lower their profit margin but to push, push and push on the production side and force the producers to lower their prices. The producers, who are just as human, therefore just as greedy and short-sighted as everyone else along the line, look for ways to lower their cost price, and that's when human trafficking comes in.

Of course human trafficking and slavery are horribly wrong, but accusing the fishermen as if they were the only culprits along the line is like accusing the boxer who kills his oponent in order to win the match (because that's what he's paid for), please the audience (that's what they paid for) and keep the betting shops' business busy (that's what they do), as if it was all his fault, and only his.

Naturally the argument here is 'yes, but only the trafficking is illegal'. True, but in my opinion, the real issue here is not : what is legal and what is not, but what is wrong and what is right. And the fact is that wild capitalism has ended up allowing innumerable things that were/are obviously wrong, in every possible field, strictly in the name of profit making (guns, GMO, subprimes, etc.), and even though some people/organizations try to keep things in check, they seem to me like individuals trying to stop the tide with their hands.

Theoretically, capitalism doesn't have to be wild, but then human beings don't have to be barbaric either. Theoretically.

[cornishcarlos]

Blood diamonds in Africa, and now blood prawns in Thailand ... both should be banned !

What about blood oranges in Italy ?

[Nobb]

Enough said about Thailand troubles with the rest of the world!

[Nobb]

Remember a week ago we were shown a picture of women lying about on a filthy floor peeling shrimp with no head gear. Suddenly we see a photo of smiling happy Burmese wearing brand new white caps and standing & peeling shrimp on a stainless bench. . Overseen by a bored and smiling BIB. That was quick !!!!!!! And of course it wont last. When the media and cops lose interest (paid off) business will return the way its always been .

You wonder how much human hair ,snot and ticks/fleas have dropped into the shrimp over the years. Health standards here are atrocious except in food factories owned by Japanese and farangs.

If US and Euro importers were to inspect Bangkok food markets and see all these filthy dogs and rats running about everywhere they would probably consider cancelling their orders and getting on the first plane out of BKK.

No-one takes any notice of the laws in this country. Its too corrupt. No-one cares anymore.

Your forget but did a great job covering these health standards in Thailand but you forgot the flies and people coughing on all the products. The workers do not take health examinations. So Sad!

[tbthailand]

EU demands Thailand address slavery in its seafood industry

Dear Slavery in our seafood industry,

....

blah blah blah,

...

Sincerely,

Thailand

[MaiChai]

Kind of think automation would be the solution? I mean machines. Seems silly in this day and age that this work should be done by hand.

[Jim walker]

And dont fly your shady seafood to the EU in these half humpty Thai air planes without proper airworthy certification or we will give you another severe warning and it will definitely be the final last one soldier boy PM.

[Squeegee]

Thailand's growing pains towards modernism. In the larger scheme of things that's how the current junta will be percieved, in my opinion: an embodiment of being dragged kicking and screaming.

Their seafood industry is going through exactly the same process. In a way these things are positive for Thailand because the smoke from which there must have been fire is evidence of some kind of development away from what once was. Hard to see it clearly now, and so easy to say it's always been like this and will never change, but I do think that the only reason why Thailand is having all these issues right now is precisely because inevitable change is in effect.

Thailand has had a taste of development with its glitzy malls and iPhones and that can never be rewound: Thai people will, for example, do like the Taiwanese and increasingly wear helmets on motorbikes as their incomes rise and they learn they have more to lose.

So it may look bleak right now but really both the seafood industry revelations and even the craziness of the current government are evidence of hope for the future.

But here is the real, long term problem that they are only beginning to face, a problem that will become worse and never go away: by letting go of - nay, losing - an idyllic past where third world 'freedoms' to party without consequence no longer stand they will see unemployment, their cost of living skyrocket, labour costs too, and a multitude of other things that developed nations know so well.

These growing pains, as they clean themselves up, are just the beginning for Thailand. Modernity is a wonderful thing but life will only become more difficult as they realise they must now lock their doors and windows at night and compete more than ever before with their neighbour for what inevitably feels like less.

[fred Kubasa]

This will result in :

1). Rejection of EU findings

2). Poor me whining

3). We did it - you just didn't see

4). Head scratching and promises

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'm waiting for the formal announcement that the EU has unconditionally surrendered to Thailand, and the EU will henceforth be governed by the NCPO, with promises of restoring Thai happiness to all enslaved fish industry laborers.

[Thian]

The EU will not do anything full of hot air. Shrimp from Thailand tastes too good to ban it and is nice and cheap.

Ban it and stop paying for it is the only way to resolve it but that will never happen.

Last time i looked in the fishshop in Europe a big prawn costed 5 euro a piece, 4-5 years ago.

Then they started selling fake prawns made of surimi who were cheaper.

For 5 euro we can buy 2kg of minced pork or a good beefsteak. Or 500 gram cod-fillet (no bones or skin).

So i don't think shrimps are cheap at all. Don't know if they were thai shrimps though.

[Changwatchap]

Finally some action on this.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/obama-bans-us-imports-slave-produced-goods-37174907

President Barack Obama signed a bill Wednesday that includes a provision banning U.S. imports of fish caught by slaves in Southeast Asia, gold mined by children in Africa and garments sewn by abused women in Bangladesh, closing a loophole in an 85-year-old tariff law that has failed to keep products of forced and child labor out of America.