A new report from the Danish NGO, DanWatch, shows that child labour is being used at shrimp-processing plants in Thailand. Denmark is importing big amounts of shrimps and prawns, from Asian countries, every year. In 2012 alone the imports amounted to 5300 tons. Most of them are from Cambodia, China and Thailand.
The report says that children of illegal immigrants are employed in the plants in Thailand, where they clean and peel shrimps, often with work hours from 5 in the morning till 6 in the evening.
“The children that we have talked to and observed, don’t go to school. And since they are illegal immigrants, their parents aren’t registered anywhere, and they are threatened with expulsion if they complain, “ Eva Hesse Lundstrøm, director of DanWorks, said to Politiken.
DanWatch concludes that approximately ten thousand children work at those processing plants in the bounded areas in Thailand.
“There are laws in Thailand that are supposed to protect the workers, but they are not being enforced, because of the shrimp-industry´s need for cheap labour, “ She concluded.
The environmental consequences of the shrimp-industry in Asian countries, has also been repeatedly criticized by the WWF – World Wildlife Fund.
Source: Politiken, February 16.
The Dan Watch report is a disgrace and gives a completely wrong picture of the production of shrimp and seafood in Asia.
Only 3.3% of warm water shrimp being imported to Denmark are from Thailand, but Dan Watch claims that child labor and forced labor is big problem for producers in Asia. Dan Watch did not examine the situation in Vietnam, Bangladesh and China? Both China and Bangladesh are the hard way been forced to raise the quality, since the EU has repeatedly halted imports. Is the smallest traces of antibiotics and another in a container of shrimp imports into the EU, the prawns are destroyed and exporter experiences a loss of about a million pounds.