Luis CDeBaca, Ambassador-at-Large in the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, testified before Congress this week about the fight against human trafficking:
Beyond legislating, governments can use their leverage as consumers to curb the demand for forced labor. We have already taken steps in the U.S. Government’s procurement and contracting policies to protect against both sex and labor trafficking.
POGO investigator Jake Wiens blogged last week that the Wartime Contracting Commission seemed skeptical of the State Department's ability to oversee and prevent subcontractors who engaged in human trafficking. Yesterday, POGO released internal corporate and government documents indicating that the U.S. continues to award contracts to a Kuwaiti company that has been implicated in abusing and confining its foreign workers.
Image by Flickr user IFPRI, used under Creative Commons License.
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