CECC Asks Costco to Explain Risk Assessment for Seafood Forced Labor
The leaders of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China asked the CEO of Costco to give them "a detailed response to reports about Costco’s sale of seafood from Chinese companies that use forced labor to catch and process seafood for the U.S. market." In a letter made public on Nov. 1, CECC Chair Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Co-chair Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. noted that the committee recently held a hearing about forced labor in fish processing facilities in China. They asked Costco to describe what audits and risk assessments it has done to ensure that fish processed in China was not done with forced labor.
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They asked: "Is it Costco’s position that its seafood supply-chain is completely free of forced labor and that no Uyghurs or North Koreans are processing seafood for sale at Costco? If not, what concrete steps are you taking right now to ensure that Costco’s customers are not consuming seafood tainted by forced labor?"
The bulk of the letter was about video surveillance equipment from Hikvision and Dahua Technology, which is legal to sell in the U.S., but, according to the CECC letter, other firms stopped selling security equipment from these brands, "citing human rights and ethical sourcing concerns."