Correspondence
Email sent to the Aquaculture Stewardship Council's global press manager and media team.
The email said that The Outlaw Ocean Project's investigation found evidence of Uyghur forced labor over a multi-year period at five Chinese seafood processors with ASC certification, while the parent company of a sixth processor is known to have accepted Uyghurs under a Chinese government transfer program. The email asked if the ASC could provide further information on the auditing of these plants.
Desirée Pesci, Global Press and PR Manager replied: "Thanks for contacting us. I hereby acknowledge receipt of your email. We will respond to your questions before the deadline."
Desirée Pesci, Global Press and PR Manager at the ASC replied with a lengthy statement detailing how concerning these findings are for the ASC, noting that the organization was “not aware of the extent to which the Xinjiang labour transfer programme expanded outside of the Xinjiang Region and the risks that this presents to employees of seafood operations in other provinces across China, until your investigation brought this to our attention.” The statement said that the ASC condemns all forms of forced labor and has a robust and rapidly developing human rights program. The organization also said that it shares the MSC’s Chain of Custody (CoC) Standard for processors and suppliers that handle ASC certified seafood: “We place a high value on transparency in our system, but this does work slightly differently in the shared ASC/MSC Chain of Custody.” The statement continued: “We can confirm that the listed companies have all undertaken third-party social audits (Sedex SMETA) between December 2021 and July 2022 and that no business-critical issues were raised in any of these audits, but we do not have access to further details on the labor audits. All the six companies have had their last CoC audit between July 2022 and April 2023.” The email asked if The Outlaw Ocean Project could share the evidence found as this could aid the ASC in its investigation.
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed back, asking if the ASC could share specific audit dates for each plant and the identity of the company that carried out the audit. The email also asked: "The new module you've shared refers to violations of "applicable laws and regulations relevant to the ‘scope of the CoC Standard’" - would that include the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act? And may I clarify that your position is that the CoC certification of a plant would be revoked if an ASC investigation determines the presence of Xinjiang workers deployed through government labor transfer?
Bertrand Charron, Director of Market Research & Insights and Interim/Acting Director of Corporate Communications emailed that he would respond while his colleague Desirée is out of office, and that it may be next week before ASC can respond to the latest questions from The Outlaw Ocean Project.
Bertrand Charron replied for ASC, saying: "I’d like to assure you that we will be responding to your query and are doing our utmost that regard. These are rightfully very important topics and questions. As much as we’d like to be able to provide you with those in a speedy manner, we need to reach out for information, and to consult with the right people within our organisation… some of whom are currently on holiday and cannot be reached at this time. Realistically it will be mid-next week before we can revert to you."
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed Desirée Pesci and Bertrand Charron at the ASC, asking if they would respond to the earlier queries by the end of the week.
Bertrand Charron responded that they would reply the following day, and the delay was due to key personnel traveling recently.
Bertrand Charron replied for the ASC with further details of the organization's new Chain of Custody Module, which became effective in May 2023, including in the context of US law. The email said that the organization is unable to assist in sharing speific information about audits carried out at particular plants due to Sedex member confidentiality and that it also does not have access to data included within the audit reports.