March 26, 2024 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) has issued a formal request that Indian shrimp be added to the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2024 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.
The list is released annually, though the 2023 report has still not been issued. In the 2022 report, Taiwan, Thailand, China, Bangladesh, and Myanmar were called out for the alleged use of forced labor in their fishing or shrimp-processing sectors. In the 2020 report, Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador, Kenya, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, and Yemen were cited as having child labor present in their seafood industries, while countries listed as having forced labor in their seafood sectors included China, Taiwan, Thailand, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Indonesia.