By Nathan Strout published in seafoodsource.com
U.S. regulatory agencies will host a series of three webinars in November to discuss the ramifications of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act on the seafood sector.
The webinars come roughly a year after scandalous reports by the Outlaw Ocean Project revealed a litany of labor abuses in China’s seafood industry, including evidence of forced labor by China’s oppressed Uyghur population in seafood supply chains. The reports led to U.S. company’s severing ties with Chinese seafood supplier and increased scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and regulators.
In July, the U.S. Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force – an interagency group led by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – updated its Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Strategy to include seafood – along with aluminum, chloride, and polyvinyl – as new high-priority sectors for enforcement.
“We are committed to expanding our enforcement of the UFLPA to keep goods made with forced labor out of U.S. markets,” Under Secretary for Policy and Chair of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force Robert Silvers said at the time. “This will happen through designation of more companies to the UFLPA Entity List, enforcement by CBP at our ports, focus on additional industry sectors, and continued engagement with industry and civil society.”
Now, the UFLPA is hosting a series of three webinars to help the U.S. seafood sector understand how the government is working to stop goods in violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act from entering the U.S. The UFLPA 101 for the Seafood Sector Webinar Series will include participation from DHS’s Office of Policy, Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Office of Trade, the Department of Labor, and the Department of State. The three webinars will be held as follows:
- The UFLPA and the UFLPA Entity List, 12 November at 1:00 p.m. EST;
- CBP’s Enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, 13 November at 1:00 p.m. EST; and
- Shoring Up Seafood Supply Chains through Due Diligence, 14 November at 1:00 p.m. EST.
All three webinars are free, although seats are limited. The recorded webinars will later be posed to the Customs and Border Protection website for replay.
The webinar series comes shortly after U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Arizona) sent out letters to eight federal agencies asking for information on how they’re working to prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and forced labor in the seafood supply chain. The letter to the State Department specifically asks how the government will use the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to stop seafood process with Uyghur labor from entering the U.S.
