UK COCKLE DEATHS 'SUSPICIOUS'
7.2.2004. 14:01:18		 Back to News

Police walk past bags of cockles collected by the group of pickers, as rescue services continue to search Morecambe Bay (pic:AAP)

Police are investigating the deaths of 19 people, thought to be illegal Chinese workers, killed while digging for shellfish off the northwest coast
of England.

It is believed the victims drowned when they were caught in surging tides in freezing waters as they searched for cockles in Morecambe Bay, which is notorious for its swift-rising tides and treacherous mud flats.

The deaths, which police are treating as suspicious, have sparked calls for more protection of migrant workers.

The Home Office said the victims, mainly aged in their teens and 20s, were brought to Britain illegally by a ruthless people-trafficking network to work on the dangerous shores.

According to reports, they were to be paid around eight pounds ($A19) for nine hours of labour.

Rescuers launched a massive hunt using helicopters and lifeboats after the group of workers were reported missing late on Thursday.

Sixteen survivors -14 Chinese and two Europeans - were found. Of them, nine had previously filed for asylum, and four requested political asylum on Friday.

Home Office minister Beverly Hughes said the deaths underline the dangers for people who are smuggled into Britain by highly organised gangs and snakeheads.


Similar Chinese gangs were blamed when the bodies of 58 Chinese people were found in the back of a lorry at the southern English port of Dover in June 2000. They had suffocated to death.

In August last year, police arrested 37 Chinese people in Morecambe after concerns were raised about the scale of cockle picking in the area.

Collecting shellfish is not illegal, but locals have demanded that gangs should be regulated and licensed.

SOURCE: SBS World News (pic: AAP)


Comments:

March 9, 2007 Steve, Thanks for your comments on the items about migrant workers. Yes, we are trying to promote our own handmade toys and having this item may be both irrelevant and potentially unhelpful. Yes, it is easy for anyone to be hoodwinked and to chase pots of gold at the end of a rainbow.

How much people know before they leave their home to try and seek something better for themselves and their families obviously varies. Maybe the more desperate you are the more risks you’ll take - or ignore?

Are we saying “Don’t buy Chinese Made”? No. We are trying to highlight issues about integrity in trade.

Does it boil down to how globalisation works for any of us: who benefits and what is the cost to those with successively less bargaining power? Is it better to have a job - any job - than to be without anything at all? We can’t possibly answer that. But I can’t get it out of my mind that in the decade and more prior to the ending of apartheid in South Africa, many promoted trade with S.A. as a means of providing employment to black South Africans (who would otherwise starve without the jobs that trade created). I’m sure the anti-apartheid people (when their voice was finally heard) said the opposite.

We are raising issues that worry us about what we buy, where and how it is made, and the impact of that on the people and the environments where this happens. I look forward to lots more on-going discussion. Thanks for taking the time to comment - and for your wonderful support in what we do. M.L.