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Special report: Thailand's seafood industry feeds hungry Americans, but with help of 'slaves'

GlobalPost special report

For Americans, the calculation is worrisome. Thailand is the United States’ second-largest supplier of foreign seafood.

Of America's total seafood imports, 1 out of every six pounds comes from the Southeast Asian nation.

The accounts of ex-slaves, Thai fishing syndicates, officials, exporters and anti-trafficking case workers, gathered by GlobalPost in a three-month investigation, illuminate an opaque offshore supply chain enmeshed in slavery.

  1. 1 Forced labor in the seafood industry

    In 2012 forced labor persists. In the wild-caught seafood industry, the first crucial supply-chain steps take place in a lawless, saltwater abyss.

  2. 2 Thailand fishing: Desperate life at sea

    The years grind away at young lives. Most slaves don't step on land for a full six years.

  3. 3 Ex-slaves from Thailand put fish on plates worldwide

    Thailand, a major source of fish imported to the US, depends on slave labor to run business.