Drinking the Tigris: Indentured Servitude at BIAP

Finally!!! This is starting to get out or Iraq. My favorite CNN reporter, Michael Ware does a report on labor abuse committed by KBR and their subcontractors in Baghdad, specifically in the airport area where I live. This is something I've been pressing people about for a year and a half. FBI, Border Patrol, State Dept, nobody is willing to take a stand on this. Meanwhile thousands of migrant laborers, almost all from S.Asia are living without full civil rights, no labor protections, and arguably - in debt bondage. All those jobs soldiers used to do: laundry, cooking, construction, water management, trash removal, in this neo-con war is being done with cheap labor out of S.Asia. The guys who work in our cafeteria make between one and two dollars and hour. They work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. In a month they make less than 700 dollars and they have to PAY to get the jobs. Keep in mind, these guys are working INSIDE American bases. These are the guys who put the food on the soldiers plate. How much did they pay to get here? Most have paid labor brokers between three and five thousand dollars. They sell their family farms or take loans from loansharks in their home countries at usary interest rates. THIS IS ENDENTURED SERVITUDE. WRITE YOUR CONGRESSPERSON(S). This is not my America, but this is all in our names.

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on December 4, 2008 5:25 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Rahul Das weighs in on Mumbai.

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