Are UK Asian gangs secretly exploiting cockle pickers as coronavirus kills jobs?
- Group cockle picking, police seizures, reported in coastal areas
- UK unemployment and coronavirus lockdown could be a factor
Sixteen years after 23 Chinese illegal immigrants drowned off the coast of northwest England picking cockles, authorities are sounding the alarm as they try to discover who is harvesting shellfish in greater numbers.
UK antislavery authorities and charities said they had not seen evidence of Asian gangs recruiting from particular ethnic groups recently, but could not rule it out either. There was a substantial increase in group cockle picking after Britain went into coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, they said.
Cockle picking for personal consumption is allowed in some coastal areas, but selling commercial quantities without a permit is illegal.
“We don’t usually have this much activity with regard to shellfish,” said Jenni Baines, a senior investigator with the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA). “It’s very concerning. I don’t see this problem dissipating immediately and the message we want to get across is not only the dangers from the sea, but that the food you catch and eat could also actually kill you or someone else.”
Aside from the risk of harvesting shellfish not fit for human consumption, authorities were concerned that as winter set in, inexperienced cockle pickers could drown, especially in bad weather.