‘Labor trafficking’ Archives

Welcome to My Quandary

I have been pitching a story on labor trafficking under US contractors in Iraq since April. How about interviews with Filipino laborers who escaped Iraq and claimed they were forced to work there against there will? No, the network producer wants something fresher. How about Jesus Christ being nailed to the cross in the Green Zone? "That would be [...]

US Mum on Huge Embassy in Baghdad

That's the headline of a story by Knight Ridder's Leila Fadel on the new Baghdad embassy. She notes the contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting, "is a relative novice in embassy building and has been criticized for its treatment of Asian workers, who, critics say, are imported because they can be paid low wages, and because they [...]

Reporting on Fort Apache, Baghdad

The news stories about the new US embassy sprouting up in Baghdad's Green Zone are now in full bloom. The Associated Press headlines New U.S. Embassy in Iraq cloaked in mystery. USA Today chimes in with Giant U.S. embassy rising in Baghdad. What's missing? The fact that the Kuwaiti-based contractor building the embasy wasn't the lowest bidder, [...]

Law Violated, But Pentagon Offers No Names on Contractor Human Trafficking

From: DAVID PHINNEY Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 12:41 AM To: Mace Brian A LtCol MNF-I Deputy IG Subject: Brian, I am a reporter for CorpWatch and contributor to BBC. As you may recall, I began researching labor conditions and allegations of trafficking last July. I was then told the issues I raised were under investigation. (SEE BELOW) I [...]

Noted by UPi

Documents obtained by David Phinney. The U.S. military in Iraq has demanded that the passports of all employees of contractors and subcontractors serving the military in Iraq be returned to them by May 1. It is also insisting that the thousands of civilian workers in Iraq and Afghanistan are given at least 50 square feet of personal living space [...]

Pentagon Attacks Labor Trafficking by US Contractors

by David Phinney April 24, 2006 -- It has been long in coming. The Pentagon is now demanding that contractors fight labor trafficking and lousy working conditions in Iraq endured by tens of thousands of low-paid south Asians working under US-funded contracts in Iraq. In an April 19 memorandum to all Pentagon contractors in Iraq and [...]

Labor Trafficking in Iraq…..

This is an interesting development according to a KBR worker who complained about working conditions of low-paid Asian laborers working under US contracts. The development follows my series on the working conditions and trafficking of south Asians Blood, Sweat & Tears along with Cam Simpson's series that followed in The Chicago Tribune: I have [...]

Baghdad Embassy Contract Roils US Contractors

I said it before and I'll say it again: Kuwait-based contractor now building the new $592-million US embassy in Baghdad has some pretty heavy baggage. It has been repeatedly accused of exploiting low-paid Asian workers and coercing them to work in war-torn Iraq against their will under US funded contracts. A lot of people view such labor [...]

Kuwati Company Accused of Labor Trafficking Builds US Embassy in Baghdad