I’m contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s food processing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between a company engaged in such practices and your supply chain. Shandong Meijia Group has received persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China under the state-imposed labor transfer program. 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 la…
The PR Department of Maruha Nichiro Corporation sent an email providing the 'annual survey on human rights' questions that it sends to its suppliers, and said that Meijia Group scored the highest marks in the scale across all questions. The email also provided points of information that Meijia provided to Maruha Nichiro on foot of The Outlaw Ocean Project's email to Maruha Nichiro, in which Meijia said it accepted employees from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region through their own application and that these employees gradually returned home after the end of 2019, due to Covid-19. Meijia also sa…
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied to Maruha Nichiro, saying there was evidence that contradicted the statement given to Maruha Nichiro by Shandong Meijia regarding Xinjiang workers, including Chinese news coverage of Xinjiang workers going to Shandong Meijia in February 2020. The email also asked additional questions of Maruha Nichiro regarding social audits of Shandong Meijia Group sites.
We have not conducted the on-site audit related to labor aspects of Shandong Meijia Group yet. The latest response to the self-assessment questionnaire from SMG that we mentioned in the previous message was returned back to us early in this month. Regarding the issues you raised for us, we will keep close watch on any information that will concern inadequate labor practices.
We were previously in correspondence with Maruha Nichiro in June 2023 regarding our investigation into China’s seafood processing industry. We’re contacting you now in light of our research on the practice of ‘flagging in’, whereby fishing vessels owned by companies in one country are flagged to another country in order to access that second country’s waters.
We are not indicating explicitly or implicitly that flagging-in is illegal, we are just taking a look at the issue of flagging-in globally.
Publicly available documents concerning an initial public offering for Zhejiang Ocean Family sh…
Thank you for your inquiry.
We procure marine products under the understanding that Hong Dong Mauritania is a legally authorized fishing company operating in Mauritanian waters with authorization from the Mauritanian government.
On the other hand, with regard to Zhejiang Ocean Family, although there have been reports of suspicion of IUU fishing, and although their report states that this is not the case, we are unable to completely dispel this suspicion, and we will therefore review our future transactions with the company.