Shrimp processing is the most labor intensive process and no technology is currently available to replace that labor. Most popular processed prawn meat is called P&D meat. It basically means peeled and divined.

To produce that a very young Burmese girl, sometimes just a child, has to stand on her feet 12 hours a day peeling the wet skin and cutting out the small shit line off an individual prawn picked out of a huge pile of caught or farmed prawns. She has to work on so many prawns, at the end of her shift her fingers would be hard dried and senseless that she wouldn’t be able to use them for a while. All that cruel works for as low as just 25 cents a day.

Container loads of prawn meat from Burma are imported by the western democracies every day so that we can eat the yum cha cheaply. All the prawn processing plants in Burma are owned directly by the army as a whole through “Myanmar Economic Holding” or owned individually by the generals as the exporting business of prawn meat is the most lucrative business available in Burma even surpassing the gem trade. Stop eating Burmese prawns, I honestly believe, could hurt Burmese generals more than arming Karens fighting on the border.

So next time you eat a prawn meal in an Asian restaurant think of this post, then curse the Burmese generals and pray for the poor Burmese girls, for they are the ones making it your meal as cheap as possible and thus enjoyable.