March 27, 2024 — Late last week, following the multiple reports on human rights and environmental abuse within India’s shrimp industry, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Executive Committee of the Board of Directors adopted and shared the “Seafood Industry Labor Principles, A Commitment By NFI Members.”
“There is no place for labor abuse in the seafood supply chain,” the document reads. “Every worker should have freedom of movement and no worker should be coerced to work.”
The Associated Press, Outlaw Ocean Project, and Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) all released reports last week exposing alleged labor abuse within India’s shrimp industry. Choice Canning Company, which has been exporting seafood products from India for the past 67 years, was named by a whistleblower in the report put out by Outlaw Ocean Project. According to the whistleblower, a 45-year-old American named Joshua Farinella, some Choice Canning workers were prohibited from leaving the facility. As general manager of Choice Canning’s plant six miles northeast of Amalapuram, Farinella also found himself covering up overcrowding when inspectors came, and even sending out shrimp that knowingly tested positive for antibiotics.