Prawns, which you probably know as shrimp, are sold by the frozen bag load at massive grocers around the world like Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco. And a new study released by the Guardian today says those shrimp are farmed by human slaves under conditions almost too chilling for words. It’s a lengthy, impossibly sad article, but the long and short of it is this: Escaped slaves described 20-hour days with no pay, regular torture, beatings and even executions at the hands of the world’s largest prawn farmer, Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods. “They kept me chained up, they didn’t care about me or give me any food,” said a former monk-turned slave. “They sold us like animals.” Another former slave said he’d seen at least twenty executions, including one man who he says was tied up between two different boats and pulled apart.
When reached for comment, CP Foods’ UK manager Bob Miller said “We’re not here to defend what is going on …We know there’s issues with regard to the [raw] material that comes in [to port], but to what extent that is, we just don’t have visibility” …