This may be old news, but worth repeating. Re-posting from Listverse.com
Pu"If you’ve ever owned a cat, you may have bought some Purina cat food at some point. By doing so, you may have also helped to support Nestle’s use of slave labor in Thailand. Sorry to bum you out.
Usually, the workers are immigrants, brought in from Thailand’s even poorer neighbors Myanmar (Burma) and Cambodia. For the privilege of a Thai job, they are charged an illegal fee and trapped into working within the fishing industry to pay off heavy debt.
A Burmese worker describes their working conditions: “Sometimes, the net is too heavy and workers get pulled into the water and just disappear. When someone dies, he gets thrown into the water.”
In 2014, Nestle launched their own investigation into Thai fishing industry practices. The findings were made public, revealing that almost all other companies that source their seafood from Thailand (the world’s third-biggest seafood exporter) were likely entwined with the abuse.
Nestle promised to take action to improve workers’ conditions and find more ethical ways of sourcing seafood ingredients. Human rights groups responded positively to the plans.
Nick Grono, CEO of the Freedom Fund, said, “If you’ve got one of the biggest brands in the world proactively coming out and admitting that they have found slavery in their business operations, then it’s potentially a huge game changer and could lead to real and sustained change in how supply chains are managed.”
When Nestle announced their intention to improve labor practices in Thailand, knowledge of abusive working conditions there (whether associated with Nestle or other leading brands) was already piling up. Earlier, the Associated Press had conducted an investigation that resulted in the rescue of 2,000 fishermen."