[JURIST] A Thai court on Monday indicted British labor rights activist Andy Hall for making false statements in a report [text, PDF] he co-authored that alleged sever labor abuse issues in Thailand’s food industry. Natural Fruit, the company at the center of the dispute and the target of Hall’s labor abuse allegations, filed a series of criminal and civil cases against Hall, the most severe of which will force Hall to appear in the Southern Criminal Court [court backgrounder] on October 19. If convicted, Hall could face up to seven years in jail. Hall’s report, titled “Cheap Has a High Price,” was published by the Finnish civil rights group Finnwatch [advocacy website] in 2013, and it specifically focused on the poor working conditions, including unlawfully low wages and long hours, at a Natural Fruit owned factory in southern Thailand. Hall was acquitted in 2013 on a defamation charge pursued by Thailand’s Attorney General, but Natural Fruit, which is a major supplier to western world, has denied allegations made in Hall’s report in addition to launching their own set of legal challenges against him, including a civil suit seeking USD $10 million in damages.

Labor abuse and poor working conditions remain an issue throughout the world. In February Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported a series of labor abuses [JURIST report] in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) despite attempts at reform. The report detailed the exploitation of migrant workers building a high-profile cultural complex in the UAE that includes branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim museums. Last August Brazil enacted a law [JURIST report] regulating its own domestic employment policies. In April 2014 Amnesty International [advocacy website] reported on the human rights abuses [JURIST report] faced by migrant domestic workers in Qatar. In November 2013 HRW issued a letter [JURIST report] to the Labor Minister of Morocco, Abdeslam Seddiki, imploring the Moroccan government to revise a draft law before the Moroccan parliament regarding legal protections for domestic workers to comply with international standards.