Lured Into Bondage

There's a good chance you or your pets have eaten fish caught by Sirichai and similar operations, though in the fishing industry the supply trail is particularly murky. One of Sirichai's main buyers is Kingfisher, which supplies leading Western brands and is controlled by Maruha Nichiro Holdings, Japan's leading seafood retailer. Maruha says it will cease doing business with Sirichai if the allegations of illegal recruiting practices are true. But many seafood wholesalers say it's hard to enforce labor rules on fishing boats. "We don't control the boats," says Joseph Kiang, a senior Kingfisher executive. "The fishing boats have their own regulation."

Another major Kingfisher client, Boston-based wholesaler Jana Brands, says it can be sure that none of its tuna supply comes from Sirichai, because Jana tracks tuna catches carefully as part of the global campaign to protect dolphins from getting slaughtered in tuna nets. Howard Woolf, Jana's managing director, says that if end buyers can certify that tuna hauls don't accidentally endanger dolphins, they could also certify that fishing fleets do not employ forced labor. (Indeed, Jana does certify that the canneries it works with are labor-friendly.) But they don't, he adds, because neither consumers nor government agencies have ever asked them to "go all the way back to the boat for human rights."

And national regulations on migrant labor often codify existing problems. For example, when Taiwan passed regulations on guest workers, its aim was to prevent them from qualifying for citizenship. Caps on what Taiwan-based labor brokers can charge have not stopped brokers abroad from charging up to $14,000 per recruit. Indeed, funding pay-to-work schemes is now big business. Led by Chinatrust, Taiwan's largest private lender, several banks have begun extending credit to migrants at 19 percent annual interest. That's about what they would pay for credit cards, but labor activists have attacked these loans as financial support for the exorbitant broker fees. A Chinatrust spokesperson says the loans are not only "fair and transparent" but also prevent workers from relying on "loan sharks in rural areas" who would charge much higher rates.

The United Nations has passed no fewer than six protocols and conventions proscribing human trafficking and forced labor. But so far, labor-exporting nations, host countries and the international community have taken only small steps to control the traffic. In response to complaints, Malaysia has called a temporary halt to imports of labor from Bangladesh. At the other end of the pipeline, the Dhaka government has vowed to investigate charges that Bangladesh's labor exports effectively constitute legalized slavery. But emancipation remains only a dream.

With Joe Cochrane in Indonesia, Jonathan Adams and Ron Brownlow in Taipei, Marites Vitug and Tonette Orejas in the Philippines, Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop in Singapore, Sudip Mazumdar in New Delhi and Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo

© 2008