Last year, the Guardian shed light on an unfortunate truth about much of the shrimp sold in North America, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere around the world. A six-month-long investigation revealed that torture, wage-theft, beatings, and various other illegal practices were a reality in the production chain of the world’s largest supplier.
‘‘If you buy prawns or shrimp from Thailand, you will be buying the produce of slave labor,’’ Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, told the Guardian at the time. And many countries do, including the United States, which imports about half of the shrimp Thailand harvests.
The investigation followed a 2013 report by the Environmental Justice Foundation, a nongovernmental organization, which chronicled the abuse in the Thai shrimp industry.
But almost two years later, the problem persists.
A new report published on Monday by the Associated Press holds that such abuses are still rampant in the Thai shrimp industry. What’s more, major markets around the world aren’t doing a good job of keeping shrimp peeled by modern-day slaves out of their food system. The AP investigation — which has led to the freeing of thousands of indentured fishermen, dozens of arrests, and millions of dollars in seizures — found that the United States has been particularly poor in this regard. This, per the report:
‘‘US customs records show the shrimp made its way into the supply chains of major US food stores and retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Dollar General, and Petco.
‘‘It also entered the supply chains of some of America’s best-known seafood brands and pet foods, including Chicken of the Sea and Fancy Feast, which are sold in grocery stores from Safeway and Schnucks to Piggly Wiggly and Albertsons.