Forgive me if this has been diaried before, but I haven't seen it here, nor on complimentary blogs.
The Chicago Tribune, which every now and then does a bombshell foreign correspondence piece, has a stunning series on the foreign workers doing menial labor in Iraq, and how they get there. As it turns out, many of them pay something like ten years' average salary to brokers in order to work comparatively lucrative jobs overseas. Sometimes they're aware this is Iraq. Sometimes they're not.
Who is hiring the brokers? KBR, of course.
Menial, non-combat jobs in Iraq are increasingly filled by foreign workers from impoverished countries, mostly from Central and Southeast Asia. Why would a Nepalese 18-year-old allow himself to be uprooted and sent into a war zone (assuming he is aware of his destination, which isn't always true)?
According to salary statements obtained by the Tribune, the pay for such workers can range from about $65 to $112 weekly--a fortune to those scratching a living from the farm fields and brick factories of Nepal, where the per capita annual income is about $270.
The money they make in Iraq can go a long way in their home countries.
More than 100 jobs were waiting for Nepalese men, the ad promised. They would fetch $200 to $500 per month. Just one month's salary would be enough to cover rent for Bishnu Hari's family for more than half the year. Enough for him to send his little brother to college.
But going to work in the midst of a war isn't the only sacrifice these men and their families have to make. Many have to pay staggering fees for the privledge.
In late June, Bishnu Hari spoke by phone with his mother. It was time to pay the fee for the job, he told her, so please arrange to get the money.
She borrowed more than $2,100, about $400 of which came from the local development bank, a sort of savings and loan. The rest came from lenders in the village who charged 36 percent interest a month, she said.
So the money doesn't even start to benefit the family until several months after the work begins--more, if the 36 percent/month figure is a common one.
Who is responsible for this system? The brokers, who gouge these impoverished Nepalese and often lie to them about their destinations.
Who hires the brokers? KBR.
Do they give a s**t? Of course not:
Asked what it was doing to stop the flow of workers from these nations or to monitor its subcontractors, KBR said questions "regarding the recruitment practices of subcontractors should be directed to the subcontractor."
So, at least we can expect some oversight at the governmental level, right? Like, at the very least, some punishment is going to get dealt out?
The State Department has long expressed concerns about the treatment of foreign workers in the same Middle Eastern nations the U.S. relies on to supply labor for bases in Iraq. In June, the department added four of these nations--Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates--to the top tier of its human trafficking watch list for not undertaking "significant efforts to combat forced labor trafficking."
U.S. law calls for sanctions in such cases. But last month, citing Kuwait's and Saudi Arabia's efforts in the "Global War on Terror," President Bush waived the sanctions against them. This allowed more than $6 billion in combined military sales to go forward. One reason laborers from developing countries are sought for work in Iraq is the U.S. military fears that hiring Iraqis would allow insurgents to infiltrate its bases.
More casualties of a war on the cheap.
Anyway, that's plenty of borrowing from me--please read the whole thing. Then tell the Trib thanks for bringing to light this underreported story.
Then get on the line with your representatives.