Correspondence
Email sent to Peter Carpenter, Director of Quality Assurance at Aqua Star.
The email said: "I’m contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s food processing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between a company engaged in such practices and your supply chain.
Your supplier, Dalian Rich Enterprise Group, signed a distribution agreement in 2022 with a Chinese conglomerate (Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture) known to have participated in a Chinese government program described by the U.S. government as an indicator of forced labor.
The United Nations, human rights organizations and academic experts agree that since 2018, the Chinese government has systematically subjected Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities to forced labor within Xinjiang and across the country via state-sanctioned employment schemes which use coercive methods in worker enrollment. The U.S. has prohibited the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor.
Does Aqua Star have any comment or statement to make in light of the above information? Please respond to this email by close of business May 25, 2023."
Email sent to two contact addresses for Aqua Star. The email said: "We previously emailed Aqua Star on May 23, 2023, regarding our investigation into the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry. Our ongoing investigation has made further findings which we want to bring to your attention. We have investigators on the ground in China who have been engaging with labor brokers directly involved with the transfer of North Korean workers to factories in China. Through this and other investigative means, including collecting online footage from the plants and interviews with workers recently returned to North Korea from China, we’ve found large numbers of North Korean workers at a range of seafood processing plants in Dandong city, close to China’s border with North Korea.
As part of this work, we have information that as recently as December 2023, there were 50-70 workers at Dalian Haiqing Food Co. Ltd. in Dandong. According to trade records, Aqua Star was the consignee for shipments of seafood, including pollock and cod, from Dalian Haiqing between September 2017 and January 2024. The use of North Korean workers was prohibited by the United Nations Security Council in 2017, with Resolution 2397. Furthermore, under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), passed in 2017, the United States prohibits the import of any goods produced by North Korean nationals. Like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which pertains to Xinjiang labor, CAATSA has a "rebuttable presumption" whereby all North Korean workers are presumed to be state-sponsored forced labor.
As a result, we have several questions:
- While we understand that you may not be aware of the above issues, we want to ask if Aqua Star has any comment about this information that we are presenting?
- Can you please itemize for us, which of your customers receive seafood tied to Dalian Haiqing?
- Has Aqua Star conducted any social audits at this plant and if so what type, when, with what result, and were these audits unannounced?
- If audits were indeed conducted at this plant, what - if any - language or process was included in those audits specifically to identify the presence of North Korean workers?"
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed: “We haven’t heard back from you on this and wanted to see if you had any response at this time. To clarify, we are referring to a collection of plants at or near this location: Name: Dalian Haiqing Food (大连海青水产有限公司) Address: Floor 1-3, No. 9, Section 2, Jianshe Street, Zhuanghe City, Dalian, Liaoning Province (辽宁省 大连庄河市新华街道小寺委建设大街二段9号1-3层) We are aware that Dalian Haiqing Food has several plants under its umbrella at this general location.”