President Barack Obama is set to sign a legislation that would ban all US imports of fish caught by slave labor in Southeast Asia. This will allegedly close a loophole that has allowed seafood from forced labor to enter the country for many decades.
According to The New York Times, President Obama will sign a legislation this week that will effectively ban American imports of fish caught by forced labor in Southeast Asia. This is an effort to back up the recent actions by the White House, federal agencies, international trade unions and foreign governments end lawlessness at the sea and to better protect offshore workers and the marine environment.
In fact, the president already signed the Port State Measures Agreement, which empowers officials to prohibit foreign vessels suspected of illegal fishing from receiving port services and access. The United States became the 20th country to ratify the pact.
The legislation passed by the Congress last week would bar all imports of products that use convict, forced or indentured labor. The bill, which the president will approve, concludes an exemption in the US Tariff Act of 1930 that allows goods made by slaves to be imported if consumer demand cannot be met without them.
"It's an outrage this loophole persisted for so long," stated Oregon Senator Ron Wyden via The Guardian, who sponsored the bill. He also added, "No product made by people held against their will, or by children, should ever be imported to the United States."
The Rohingya migrants have also been trafficked through jungle camps to work on Thai fishing vessels as slaves. With that, hundreds of people are also believed to have been traded as slaves to support Thailand's $7.3 billion seafood industry.
Costco and CP Foods are facing a lawsuit, filed in California, to put off the sale of Thai prawns/shrimp tainted by slavery. And in January, European Union investigators headed to Thailand to observe whether it had made enough progress on the issue of slavery to evade an EU-wide ban on seafood imports from the country.
Moreover, US-sold goods including shrimp and pet food have recently been linked to slavery. About 90% of the seafood consumed in American households is imported from different parts of the world.
But as mentioned in a World Wildlife study from last year, more than 85% of the world's fish stocks are at significant risk of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. This is thought to bring harm to the marine environment, unregulated fishing is also associated with slave labor and drugs and arms smuggling.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has strengthened their moves to tackle exploitation on the high seas once and for all. Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also announced new reporting requirements for American companies to gain a better understanding of where seafood imports are sourced.
