At the age of 18, Jeyasre Kathiravel had aspirations like any other young person. She wanted to go to college, get a degree and see where life would take her.

But this was a radical dream. Kathiravel came from a Dalit family and was the first woman from her village of Thennampatti in Tamil Nadu to pursue higher studies. Though college was expensive and her family could not afford it, this did not deter Kathiravel. To pay for her education, she did what many women elsewhere in the world have done: she started a job at a local factory.

 U.S. labor campaign group has called on Taiwan to be downgraded in the U.S. State Department’s upcoming Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report due to claims the country has failed to address abuses in its fishing fleet.

Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF) and Greenpeace Taiwan, on behalf of the Seafood Working Group (SWG), are demanding Taiwan be named a Tier 2 country in the annual TIP, set to be published this summer. The State Department describes as the document as the “U.S. government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.”

An investigation by the Thomson Reuters Foundation last year found Thai prisoners were being forced to make fishing nets for private companies - including one that exported to the United States.