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 a squid fishing vessel owned by the Shandong Jiekou Fishery Group Co.’s subsidiary, Rongcheng Wangdao Dayang Aquatic Products Co. Ltd. (荣成市王岛大洋水产有限公司). The vessel is called the Zhen Fa 7 (振发7).
We have found that over a seven-month period from August 2020 to March 2021, one Zhen Fa 7 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 this 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.
We have identified a list of other squid fishing 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."