Food giant Nestlé says it has adopted a plan for handling seafood from Thailand that aims to address concerns about human rights abuses in the sector.
Its action plan for this year and next encompasses steps “to protect workers from abuses, improve working conditions and tackle unacceptable practices including juvenile and teenage working,” it said in a statement.
Since August, U.S. law firm Hagens Berman has filed two lawsuits against Nestlé accusing it of importing fish-based pet food from a Thai supplier using slave labor and importing cocoa beans from suppliers who use child labor, including children trafficked to work on farms, in Ivory Coast.
“Nestlé is committed to eliminating forced labor in our seafood supply chain in Thailand, working alongside other stakeholders to tackle this serious and complex issue,” executive vice-president of operations Magdi Batato said.
Nestlé said its plan took into account recommendations from non-governmental organisation Verite.
It said it was working with the Thai government, local seafood suppliers and international buyers on the matter while participating in the International Labor Organization Working Group, which seeks to improve labor conditions in Thailand’s seafood export industry.
The U.S. State Department criticized Thailand in its human trafficking report earlier this year, downgrading the country to the lowest tier of countries inadequately fighting, or in some cases abetting, forced labor.
It found that Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, and Indonesian men were subjected to forced labor on Thai fishing boats, with many being paid little or nothing at all, and some even suffering physical abuse.
The report also noted that there had been media reports of “corrupt Thai civilian and military officials profited from selling Rohingya asylum seekers from Burma and Bangladesh into forced labor on fishing vessels”.
See the full report here.
Story and photo: Reuters
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