Correspondence
Letter couriered from Shanghai and confirmed delivered.
The letter said: "My name is Ian Urbina and I’m the director of The Outlaw Ocean Project, a journalism non-profit based in Washington D.C. that publishes stories about human rights and environmental issues connected with the sea.
I’m writing to you in light of our latest investigation, which concerns the Chinese squid fishing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between abuses in that industry and in the supply chain of Rongcheng Jiamei Seafood Co. Ltd.
This link concerns a Chinese squid jigger owned by Rongcheng Wangdao Ocean Aquatic Products. In a seven-month period between August 2020 and March 2021, one crew member died and a second was disembarked for emergency medical treatment after suffering serious mistreatment and abuse while on board the vessel.
Our reporting also documents multiple indicators of forced labor among crew onboard that vessel: recruitment linked to debt, deceptive recruitment, enforced isolation, degrading living conditions, physical violence, wage withholding, the retention of personal identity documents and strong financial penalties for leaving employment.
Squid caught by the vessel has been transshipped to a refrigerated ship connected with Jiamei through your company’s ownership, the Lu Rong Yuan Yu Yun 009. That refrigerated ship has also transshipped with a squid fishing vessel, owned by another Chinese fisheries company, which was penalized by Argentinian authorities for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
Our investigation has also found that other reefers connected to your company through ownership transhipped with dozens of squid vessels that are connected to instances of forced labor, violence, illegal fishing, and crew neglect.
We’ve heard from multiple stakeholders at all levels of the squid industry - importers, exporters, ship owners, cold storage owners, processing companies - that there are many places where the catch can get comingled, which makes it extremely difficult for squid exporters to know with certainty that their products do not come from vessels involved in abuses. At the reefer level, after squid is caught by multiple ships, it can be comingled. At the docks level, it can get comingled as it comes off the ships. At the processing level, it can get comingled in the plant. There’s also the reality of collectives in China and conglomerates that often trade between each other.
Please let us know by Monday, January 23, 2023 if you have any comment or statement to make on the record in response to this information."
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed the contact address for Rongcheng Jiamei: "I wrote to your company earlier this year regarding our investigation into abuses in the Chinese squid fishing industry. I’m contacting you now in light of our latest investigation, which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry.
Rongcheng Jiamei Seafood is a Chishan Group company. The Chishan Group has received persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China under a state-imposed labor transfer program, since 2021 and as recently as May 2023.
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 across the country via state-sanctioned employment programs which use coercive methods in worker enrollment and obstruct freedom to leave employment. The U.S. has prohibited the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor.
Rongcheng Jiamei Seafood’s international customers include companies in the U.S., where the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor is prohibited.
Can Rongcheng Jiamei Seafood confirm or deny if any Uyghurs were employed to work at the plant at any time over the past five years?
Does Rongcheng Jiamei Seafood have any comment or statement to make in response to the above information? Please respond to this email by close of business September 7, 2023, and note that all interactions are fully on record."