PENINSULAR,
Jum’s words tumble out over the phone, his voice growing ever more frantic.
Between sobs, he says he’s trapped on a Malaysian plantation run by government-owned Felda, one of the world’s largest palm oil companies. His boss confiscated and then lost his Indonesian passport, he says, leaving him vulnerable to arrest. Night after night, he has been forced to hide from authorities, sleeping on the jungle floor, exposed to the wind and the rain. His biggest fear: the roaming tigers.
All the while, Jum says his supervisor demanded he keep working, tending the heavy reddish-orange palm oil fruit that has made its way into the supply chains of the planet’s most iconic food and cosmetics companies like
“I am not a free man anymore,” he says, his voice cracking. “I desperately want to see my mom and dad. I want to go home!”
An
Palm oil is virtually impossible to avoid. Often disguised on labels as an ingredient listed by more than 200 names, it can be found in roughly half the products on supermarket shelves and in most cosmetic brands. It’s in paints, plywood, pesticides and pills. It’s also present in animal feed, biofuels and even hand sanitizer.
The AP interviewed more than 130 current and former workers from two dozen palm oil companies who came from eight countries and labored on plantations across wide swaths of
They included members of Myanmar’s long-persecuted
The AP used the most recently published data from producers, traders and buyers of the world’s most-consumed vegetable oil, as well as
Reporters witnessed some abuses firsthand and reviewed police reports, complaints made to labor unions, videos and photos smuggled out of plantations and local media stories to corroborate accounts wherever possible. In some cases, reporters tracked down people who helped enslaved workers escape. More than a hundred rights advocates, academics, clergy members, activists and government officials also were interviewed.
This story was funded in part by the
Though labor issues have largely been ignored, the punishing effects of palm oil on the environment have been decried for years. Still, giant Western financial institutions like Deutsche Bank,
Sometimes they invest directly but, increasingly, third parties are used like
“This has been the industry’s hidden secret for decades,” said
As global demand for palm oil surges, plantations are struggling to find enough laborers, frequently relying on brokers who prey on the most at-risk people. Many foreign workers end up fleeced by a syndicate of recruiters and corrupt officials and often are unable to speak the local language, rendering them especially susceptible to trafficking and other abuses.
They sometimes pay up to
Countless others remain off the books and are especially scared of speaking out. They include migrants working without documentation and children who AP reporters witnessed squatting in the fields like crabs, picking up loose fruit alongside their parents. Many women also work for free or on a day-to-day basis, earning the equivalent of as little as
The AP is not identifying most of the workers or their specific plantations to protect their safety, based on previous instances of retaliation. Many of the interviews took place secretly in homes or coffeeshops in towns and villages near the plantations, sometimes late at night.
The Malaysian government was contacted by the AP repeatedly over the course of a week, but issued no comment. Felda also did not respond, but its commercial arm,
Indonesians such as Jum make up the vast majority of palm oil workers worldwide, including in
Unable to find a job at home, Jum says he went to
He says he initially was housed with other Indonesians in a crude metal shipping container, sweltering in the tropical heat. Later, his bed consisted of a bamboo mat next to a campfire, with no protection from the elements and the snakes and other deadly animals foraging in the jungle.
“Sometimes I sleep under thousands of stars, but other nights it is totally dark. The wind is very cold, like thousands of razors piercing my skin, especially during a downpour,” he says. “I feel that I was deliberately abandoned by the company. Now, my hope is only one: Get back home.”
He has lived this way too long, he tells the AP over the phone -- scared to stay, and scared to leave.
“Please help me!” he begs.
A half-century ago, palm oil was just another commodity that thrived in the tropics. Many Western countries relied on their own crops like soybean and corn for cooking, until major retailers discovered the cheap oil from
When researchers started warning that trans fats like those found in margarine posed serious health risks, demand for palm oil soared even higher.
Just about every part of the fruit is used in manufacturing, from the outer flesh to the inner kernel, and the versatility of the oil itself and its derivatives seem endless.
It helps keep oily substances from separating and turns instant noodles into steaming cups of soup, just by adding hot water. It’s used in baby formula, non-dairy creamers and supplements and is listed on the labels of everything from Jif Natural peanut butter to Kit Kat candy bars.
Often hidden amid a list of scientific names on labels, it’s equally useful in a host of cleansers and makeup products. It bubbles in shampoo, foams in Colgate toothpaste, moisturizes Dove soap and helps keep lipstick from melting.
But the convenience comes with a cost: For workers, harvesting the fruit can be brutal.
The uneven jungle terrain is rough and sometimes flooded. The palms themselves serve as a wind barrier, creating sauna-like conditions, and harvesters need incredible strength to hoist long poles with sickles into the towering trees.
Each day, they must balance the tool while carefully slicing down spiky fruit bunches heavy enough to maim or kill, tending hundreds of trees over expanses that can stretch beyond 10 football fields. Those who fail to meet impossibly high quotas can see their wages reduced, sometimes forcing entire families into the fields to make the daily number.
“I work as a helper with my husband to pick up loose fruit. I do not get paid,” said Yuliana, who labors on a plantation owned by London Sumatra, which has a history of labor issues and is owned by one of the world’s largest instant-noodle makers.
Muhamad Waras, head of sustainability at London Sumatra, responded that wage issues and daily harvesting quotes are regularly discussed and that workers without documents are prohibited.
The AP talked to some female workers from other companies who said they were sexually harassed and even raped in the fields, including some minors.
Workers also complained about a lack of access to medical care or clean water, sometimes collecting rain runoff to wash the residue from their bodies after spraying dangerous pesticides or scattering fertilizer.
While previous media reports have mostly focused on a single company or plantation, the AP investigation is the most comprehensive dive into labor abuses industrywide.
It found widespread problems on plantations big and small, including some that meet certification standards set by the global Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an association that promotes ethical production -- including the treatment of workers -- and whose members include growers, buyers, traders and environmental watchdogs.
Some of the same companies that display the RSPO’s green palm logo signifying its seal of approval are accused of continuing to grab land from indigenous people and destroying virgin rainforests that are home to orangutans and other critically endangered species. They contribute to climate change by cutting down trees, draining carbon-rich peatlands and using illegal slash-and-burn clearing that routinely blankets parts of
When asked for comment, some product manufacturers acknowledged the industry’s history of labor and environmental problems, and all said they do not tolerate any human rights abuses, including unpaid wages and forced labor. Most stressed they were working toward obtaining only ethically sourced palm oil, pushing governments to make systemic changes, and taking immediate steps to investigate when alerted to troubling issues and suspending relationships with palm oil producers that fail to address grievances.
Nestle,
While some companies, such as
“I understand why companies are struggling because palm oil has such a bad reputation,” said said Didier Bergeret, director of social sustainability at the
In response to the criticism,
“I am surprised with all the allegations made. All of them are not true,” he said. “There may be violations by some, but definitely it is isolated and not from our members’ plantations.”
But Soes Hindharno, spokesman for the
He added that many of the concerns raised by AP about labor conditions in
The AP traveled to Jum’s Felda plantation in
Jum’s co-workers at least had a roof covering their heads, but their shelter resembled a barn. The filthy kitchen had a hotplate and just a few pots and pans. Only two outdoor squat toilets were functional, forcing many men to share, and a mold-covered cement trough served as a communal basin for washing. Pesticide sprayers were stacked along the metal walls, just feet from their bunks.
The men said they were forced to work unpaid overtime every day. One complained of abdominal pain, saying he was too sick to go to the fields and had been asking the company to give him back his passport so he could return home. He said he was told he must pay more than
“We work until we are dying,” said a worker sitting in a room with two other colleagues. Their eyes filled with tears after learning Felda was one of the world’s largest palm oil producers.
“They use this palm oil to make all these products,” he said. “It makes us very sad.”
And the global pandemic has only complicated matters, limiting the flow of workers and contributing to even greater labor shortages in
The workers AP interviewed came from
Among the latter are stateless Rohingya Muslims such as Sayed.
Decades of oppression and outbreaks of violence have sent nearly a million
After his relatives paid a ransom, Sayed said he was sent to Muslim-majority
Once on the plantation, Sayed said he lived in an isolated lean-to, dependent on his boss to bring what little rice and dried fish he was given to eat. He said he escaped after working a month and was later arrested, spending a year and a half in an immigration detention center, where guards beat him.
“There is no justice,” he said. “People here say, ‘This is not your country, we will do whatever we want.’”
Shamshu, who also is
Shamshu had a U.N.-issued refugee card, which can provide some protection even though
During one beating, he described how a guard smashed his face against a wall, while two others pinned his arms and legs. Similar stories were repeated to the AP by several other migrant workers, including
“There is still a scar … and I still have pain,” Shamshu said of his caning. “I think it was connected to electricity because I passed out.”
In some of the worst cases of abuse, migrant workers said they fled one kind of servitude for another, detailing how they were trafficked, sold and enslaved not once, but twice.
Five men from
“In Cambodia, I often heard my parents talking about the hardship of their lives under the Khmer Rouge regime, but I myself have met this hardship, too, when I worked at the Thai fishing boat and at the Malaysian palm oil plantation,” said Sren Brohim, 48, who escaped by offering to fish for free in exchange for a boat ride home. “Working at these two places was like working in hell.”
Rights groups confirmed being double-trafficked is not uncommon, especially five to 10 years ago, when recruiters and human traffickers would wait along the coast for runaway fishermen.
Last year in
A Burmese man,
“Come out!” he recalled them yelling. “If you don’t, we will kill you!”
“We gave our sweat and blood for palm oil,”
When Americans and Europeans see palm oil is listed as an ingredient in their snacks, he said, they should know “it’s the same as consuming our sweat and blood.”
The palm industry’s dominance is perhaps best grasped by viewing its footprint from 35,000 feet in the air. Trees planted in neat rows stretch across miles of flatlands in both countries, straddling coffee-colored rivers and eventually ringing terraced mountains for as far as the eye can see, creating a patchwork of green nearly the size of
It’s easy to understand the allure, considering that crops like rapeseed, sesame and corn require a lot more land while producing far less oil.
“If the whole Western world would stop using palm oil, I don’t think that would make any difference,” said
The trees take only three or four years to mature and then bear fruit year-round for up to three decades. But most companies can’t maintain the pace of expansion without outside funding. Every 10,000 acres of new planting requires up to
Asian banks are by far the most robust financiers of the plantations, but Western lenders and investment companies have poured almost
Other contributors include
Some, including Norway’s government pension -- the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, worth about
But
Though the group accuses Maybank of having some of the loosest social and environmental assessment policies in the industry, its shareholders include institutions such as
The biggest gains for banks affiliated with palm oil come from big-ticket financial services, such as corporate loans. But some of the same institutions also offer banking services for workers, handling payrolls and installing ATM machines inside plantations.
“And this is where banks, such as Maybank, may find themselves at the heart of a forced-labor problem,” said
Jepson said abnormal paycheck deductions are commonplace industry-wide, which should trigger investigations by the banks’ risk management teams into possible money-laundering.
In a statement, Maybank expressed surprise at the criticism of its standards, saying that “we reject any insinuation that Maybank may be involved in any unethical behavior.” The bank said it had not received any complaints about worker paychecks and “does not arbitrarily make deductions to client accounts unless instructed or authorized to do so by the account holder.” It said it would immediately investigate any complaints brought forward. It also pushed back against allegations that it has loose social governance standards.
Asked for comment on their investments, BlackRock reiterated its commitment to sustainable practices, Vanguard said it monitors companies in its portfolio for human rights abuses, and State Street did not respond.
Jepson’s organization filed a petition with the
“It is an industry issue. And I would say that it’s not only specific to plantations -- you would see that in other sectors as well,” she said.
Several workers at different companies, including Jum’s plantation, showed the AP their pay stubs and ledgers documenting daily wages. Some noted they were regularly docked for not meeting quotas or shorted on their salaries every month, sometimes for years, to pay off the brokers who recruited them. In one case, more than 40 percent was subtracted from a Malaysian employee’s earnings, including a deduction for electricity.
Some months, Jum and the others said they made as little as
Karim, a Bangladeshi worker who arrived in
“I have been cheated five times in six years,” he said, adding that once when he asked for his unpaid wages, his boss “threatened to run me over with his car.”
Many of these conditions should not be a surprise to companies buying palm oil and those helping finance the plantations.
Many large suppliers have pledged to root out labor abuses after pressure from buyers who have denounced it. But some workers said they are told to hide or coached on what to say during auditors’ scheduled visits when only the best conditions are often showcased for sustainability certification.
It’s a system that keeps those like Jum from ever being seen.
Soon after his phone call with the AP pleading for help, Jum decides to slip away from his plantation, without even telling his friends goodbye. Instead, he sends them an abrupt text saying he’s had enough and will try to find an illegal boat home to
It’s a dangerous plan. The risk of getting caught or dying at sea is all too real. He could simply disappear.
Days pass with no word. But finally, Jum emerges: He has reached the Malaysian coast, but doesn’t have enough money to pay smugglers for the trip home. He is huddled in a small metal hut to avoid being spotted, wiping away tears and running his hands through thick tangles of black hair.
“If I get caught,” he tells the AP on a video call, “I’m afraid that I will not be able to see my mother again.”
Jum is hiding in a popular corridor for migrants without papers, and authorities are aggressively patrolling the area. Smooth-talking brokers also are on the hunt, waiting to pounce on vulnerable workers and promising safe passage for a price that often climbs once a trip begins.
Jum has always shielded his family from his troubles and the thought of turning to them for help fills him with shame. But as the days continue, he has no choice: He makes the call and they borrow the money needed to finally bring him home.
When it’s time to go, Jum spends the night in the forest with a group of fellow Indonesians also nervous about the risky crossing. He readies himself to plunge into the disorienting blackness of the
Once Jum climbs aboard, totally spent, he quickly realizes to his horror that the man who extracted
“No questions!” the captain screams at him. “Do you want to live or die?”
Jum spends the journey relentlessly scanning the water for lights from border patrol vessels that could catch them as the boat is slammed by waves powerful enough to capsize it. He doesn’t relax until he touches Indonesian sand.
He is safe. But he also is broke, and his family remains thousands of miles away. He looks for work, but no one will hire him without proper identification papers -- his Indonesian ID card, which says he is 32, expired years ago – so he relies on strangers for food and shelter.
After a stretch of silence, Jum finally reaches out to the AP again – crying, wracked with hunger. The AP asks if he wants to be put in touch with the local
His excitement at seeing his family is muted by the humiliation he feels returning empty-handed after working on the plantation for seven years. But it doesn’t matter to them.
“For my parents, the most important thing was that I came back home safe and healthy,” he says. “I felt so relieved when my feet stepped back in my home village. It’s a great relief, like someone who just escaped punishment. ... I feel like a free man!”
With just an elementary school education, Jum’s only job now is tending a neighbor’s rice fields for almost no money. It’s a problem many migrant workers face: Are their families better off when they’re away? At least then there’s one less mouth to feed, and they’re able to send a little cash home.
Brokers often jump on those who have returned home to such little opportunity, trying to lure them away again with renewed promises of riches.
So it’s no surprise when the phone call comes from an agent in
Come back, the agent assures him. Things will be better this time. Just come back.
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