Japan firm ‘doesn't have money for slavery compensation’

TOKYO

A Japanese textile company, ordered by Ecuadorian courts to pay $41 million to compensate its workers for keeping them in slave-like conditions, has claimed it lacks the money to pay up.

Ecuador's Constitutional Court last week ordered the company, Furukawa, to pay $120,000 to each of the 342 victims, a total of around $41 million.

It will also have to make a public apology to them.

But Furukawa's director Adrian Herrera told AFP on Dec. 14 that his company doesn't have that much money.

"Even if we sold all the properties, all the vehicles, all the assets of the company, we would not be able to pay these 41 million dollars," he said.

He added that the firm had $6 million in assets and providing all the compensations in full would "mean the closure of the company."

Former employees had complained of dire living and working conditions. In testimonials earlier this month, some said they had to give birth to children in unsanitary and overcrowded camps, while others were denied proper medical attention after work-related injuries.

Furukawa has contested the constitutional court's decision, arguing that there were inconsistencies. It has asked for the compensation amount to be reduced, saying the livelihoods of hundreds of workers currently employed at the plant depend on these jobs.

As of 2021, Furukawa's plantations for abaca — a fine plant fiber — covered almost 23,000 hectares spread over three provinces on the Pacific coast, where the majority of the population is Black.