I watched the harrowing film ‘Ghosts‘ last night. I found it an extremely emotive reminder of why we work on issues of labour standards. Ghosts dramatises the stories of the 23 Chinese illegal migrants to Britain who drowned in Morecambe Bay in February 2004.
The opening scenes of the last group of migrants standing on top of their white van as the cold dark waves lap around their legs was absolutely heart-stopping. The film works back from these moments exploring how these workers found themselves in such a desperate position. Ain Quin, a young Chinese girl pays $25,000 to be smuggled into the UK. She becomes one of 3 million migrant workers that work in Britain. Living in cramped conditions with eleven other migrants she works in meat factories supplying UK supermarkets: Tesco, Sainsbury’s and ASDA. When the work dries up and they are hounded from their home by racist abuse, the Chinese migrants find themselves cockling in Morecambe Bay.
After being beaten up by other cocklers they risk their lives by going out on the sandbeds at night, with disastrous consequences. The film brings into clarity many facets of migrants’ lives. At almost every turn they were vulnerable to exploitation. Many were bonded to moneylenders and the smugglers who had got them into the UK. As illegal migrants they were as worried about being caught as they were about scraping together their meagre living.
The film raises many questions about the plight of illegal migrants in our globalised world and gives no easy answers to their situation. A fund has been set up for the victims’ families, who are still saddled with debts and under enormous pressure from moneylenders.
Everyone working in ethical trading should be made to sit down and watch this movie, maybe it would prompt braver and more human strategies to prevent this ever happening again.
Posted by impactt 