By DANA LIEBELSON
If you think it's bad enough that billions of taxpayer dollars are going down the drain in wartime contracting in Afghanistan and Iraq--it gets worse. Some contractors have been shown to support human trafficking and labor exploitation, as their subcontractors lure impoverished third-country nationals into working for them. A new report shows that many of these traffickers are getting away scot free. With your money.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting writes, “The globalization of the world economy has spurred the movement of people across borders, especially from poorer countries, to fill low-skill jobs in support of the U.S. contingencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
On one Iraq trip in 2009, the Commission found that some contractors withheld pay from third-country workers until their contract term was completed, effectively preventing them from going home. These workers also were paid lower salaries, worked unusually long hours and did not receive vacation days.
In one example, "the SABRE International prime contractor paid the Ugandan guards an average of $700 per month, but the government paid SABRE $1,700 per month for each guard."
“U.S. contingency contractors, opportunistic labor brokers, and international criminal organizations have taken advantage of the easy flow of people, money and goods,” writes the Commission.
“Abuse does not necessarily involve fraud or the violation of law,” the report states. “But trafficking in persons does violate U.S. law and regulations.”
Although investigating and prosecuting these crimes is one of the most powerful deterrents, according to the report, the reality is that agencies often don’t have the tools to do so. It is often “difficult or impossible to subject to U.S. law” foreign contractor (or subcontractor) defendants and gathering evidence in a warzone is particularly difficult.
In addition to weaknesses in U.S. enforcement efforts, there are problems with the criminal justice frameworks in the countries where war zone-related trafficking takes place.
According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2011 trafficking report, “The government of Afghanistan made no discernible anti-human trafficking law enforcement efforts over the reporting period...in some cases, trafficking victims were jailed pending resolution of their legal cases, despite their recognized victim status.”
In Iraq, “The government continues to lack proactive victim identification procedures and provides no systematic protection services to victims of trafficking.”
The Commission has offered several recommendations to help strengthen enforcement against trafficking, including expanding the power of Inspectors General, providing incentives to contractors to end trafficking and giving the U.S. civil jurisdiction in contract cases.
Dana Liebelson is POGO's Beth Daley Impact Fellow.
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