Tuesday, December 15, 2015

I Guess No More Shrimp for Me until Thailand can Clean up Their Act and Free its "Shrimp-peeling Slaves"

I love shrimp but this kind of thing is going far beyond the pale.

Hundreds of shrimp peeling sheds are hidden in plain sight on residential streets or behind walls with no signs in Samut Sakhon, a port town an hour outside Bangkok. The AP found one factory that was enslaving dozens of workers, and runaway migrants led rights groups to the Gig shed and a third facility. All three sheds held 50 to 100 people each, many locked inside.

And this part makes me not want to ever eat shrimp that came out of Thailand for cleanliness reasons alone.

Inside the large warehouse, toilets overflowed with feces, and the putrid smell of raw sewage wafted from an open gutter just outside the work area. Young children ran barefoot through suffocating dorm rooms. Entire families labored side-by-side at rows of stainless steel counters piled high with tubs of shrimp.

So that pretty much leaves Alaska shrimp and Kahuku shrimp. So no more restaurant shrimp until I can get some assurances. I shouldn't be thinking about slaves and sewage when I'm eating ebi gunkan.

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