The potential links highlight the challenges in buying goods made in China, where the supply chains are often opaque, and come amid a broader effort to ensure New Zealand is not supporting modern slavery.

Chinese company CRRC is manufacturing buses and trains for New Zealand companies, despite alleged ties to forced labour, according to a news report published this week.

A total of 98 CRRC-made electric buses had already been ordered for Wellington, with the first one due to hit the streets in July, Greater Wellington Regional council transport committee chairman Roger Blakeley confirmed yesterday. Continue reading

Social Democratic Liberal Party leader Sitiveni Rabuka is also calling urgently for an investigation into the running of the Grace Road Group.

The Grace Road Group of companies runs dozens of businesses in Fiji employing at least 300 Koreans and 100 locals.

Fiji Trades Union Congress National Secretary Felix Anthony said the case had exposed local immigration and labour authorities.

Anthony said it was not the only company that was bringing in foreign workers.

"Work permits are issued willy-nilly despite the fact that we have workers in Fiji who could do [that] work and we have people unemployed in this country. So it's all about cheap labour."

Rabuka claimed that since 2014, the church had established a group of at least eight limited liability companies in Fiji.

He also claimed that the group's construction arm was carrying out refurbishment of the official residences and executive office of two high Fijian Government officials.

"It is also interesting that in October 2017, after only three years in Fiji, the Grace Road Group was awarded the Prime Minister's International Business Award supported by the governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji.

"The award was given on the premise that the company demonstrated innovative farming methods, passion and a strong desire for quality leading to excellence."

The six members of the Grace Road Church in Fiji were detained after its founder, Shin Ok-Joo, was arrested in Seoul for enslavement.

They have subsequently been released without charge after the intervention of the Attorney General's office.

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• fijtimes
• Image: fijisun.com.fj

Some indentured workers have even been locked in cages.

Figures released by the New Zealand Customs Service under the Official Information Act show seafood giant Thai Union has been a consistent exporter to New Zealand.

More than 620,000kg of product - breaded and frozen shrimp, fish fillets, canned tuna and salmon, surimi and material for pet food - entering the country last year.

A Pulitzer Prize for public service reporting went to the Associated Press for its landmark expose of the Thai fishing industry.

The slave-tainted seafood was tracked through to end-consumers, and many products were found to run through Thai Union networks and subsidiaries.

Pulitzer judges said the series had "freed 2000 slaves, brought perpetrators to justice and inspired reforms".

Foodstuffs, encompassing Pak'n Save and New World supermarkets, did not directly answer questions on whether it stocked Thai Union product on shelves or in house-brand products.

Instead, a spokeswoman stressed its role in efforts to clean up the sector: "We recognise that there are inherent problems associated with working with the Thai fishing industry."

Rival operator Progressive Enterprises, which runs Countdown and Woolworths stores, said none of its stock came from either of the Thai Union sites identified by the Associated Press as slave labour camps.

However a spokeswoman said Progressive sourced some material from the company: "Select canned tuna and canned salmon are manufactured at two Thai Union factories, however these factories have been independently audited to ensure they are adhering to our ethical and quality standards. No issues with child labour have been raised as part of those audits."

Pet food maker Mars said the issue of slave labour was alarming. "The practice is deplorable and goes against everything Mars stands for."

Mars which sells New Zealand brands Whiskas and Iams catfood, has been named in a class action lawsuit in the United States for failing to disclose forced labour in its supply chains, and is supplied by Thai Union.

Nestle, makers of Purina pet food, said it imported some finished products for sale in New Zealand from Thai Union, but significant progress had been made to "prevent unacceptable practices and human right abuse in the seafood supply chain".

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• Image: thedogsnobs.files.wordpress.com

For a magpie like me, this store is my nest. Half of the dresses in my wardrobe are from this shop.

Forever New has received most of my income to date, and at this rate will probably end up with my inheritance too.

So when a friend told me they used slave labour to produce the gorgeous clothing…I kept shopping there.

"Now that I have seen, I am responsible
Faith without deeds is dead"
- Albertine, Brooke Fraser

I Have Seen.
Do you remember hearing about the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013? It was a tragic event where 1,100 garment workers lost their lives in the second worst industrial accident ever recorded.

It was only tonight, doing the research for this article, where I made the connection. That a disastrous event like the factory collapse had something to do with me.

In the Ethical Fashion Guide released this month by Baptist World Aid Australia, 59 companies and 219 brands were rated on two points.

An overall grade of the company's labour rights management systems (rated from A to F). Higher grades correspond to systems which, when implemented, should reduce the risk of modern slavery, child labour and other labour rights violations.

An indicator of whether companies are paying their staff a living wage. A living wage is a wage sufficient to meet their basic needs.

It is not without some bitterness that I say, thanks to this guide, I can no longer pretend I don't know that my favourite store Forever New only has an average rating of a C+ and does not provide adequate living wages to its employees.

I have pulled out of the Ethical Fashion Guide stores which are of relevance to the average shopper in New Zealand. Continue reading

• Jessica Claire in Restless Press

Jessica studied Music Performance at the University of Canterbury and works as both a model and photographer.

Last month, the Guardian reported that over 400 Nepalese migrant workers had already died at building sites. Between 2010 and 2012 more than 700 workers from India lost their lives working on construction sites in Qatar, too. A report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) says that if conditions don't get any better, by the time the World Cup kicks off, at least 4,000 migrant workers will have died on the job. Continue reading