Post by Sher on Jan 12, 2006 22:29:03 GMT -5
Published on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 by the Chicago Tribune
U.S. Stalls on Human Trafficking
Pentagon has yet to ban contractors from using forced labor
by Cam Simpson
WASHINGTON - Three years ago, President Bush declared that he had "zero
tolerance" for trafficking in humans by the government's overseas
contractors, and two years ago Congress mandated a similar policy.
But notwithstanding the president's statement and the congressional
edict, the Defense Department has yet to adopt a policy to bar human
trafficking.
A proposal prohibiting defense contractor involvement in human
trafficking for forced prostitution and labor was drafted by the
Pentagon last summer, but five defense lobbying groups oppose key
provisions and a final policy still appears to be months away, according
to those involved and Defense Department records.
The lobbying groups opposing the plan say they're in favor of the idea
in principle, but said they believe that implementing key portions of it
overseas is unrealistic. They represent thousands of firms, including
some of the industry's biggest names, such as DynCorp International and
Halliburton subsidiary KBR, both of which have been linked to
trafficking-related concerns.
Lining up on the opposite side of the defense industry are some human-
trafficking experts who say significant aspects of the Pentagon's
proposed policy might actually do more harm than good unless they're
changed. These experts have told the Pentagon that the policy would
merely formalize practices that have allowed contractors working
overseas to escape punishment for involvement in trafficking, the
records show.
The long-awaited debate inside the Pentagon on how to implement
presidential and congressional directives on human trafficking is
unfolding just as countertrafficking advocates in Congress are running
into resistance. A bill reauthorizing the nation's efforts against
trafficking for the next two years was overwhelmingly passed by the
House this month, but only after a provision creating a trafficking
watchdog at the Pentagon was stripped from the measure at the insistence
of defense-friendly lawmakers, according to congressional records and
officials. The Senate passed the bill last week.
Delay seen as weakness
The Pentagon's delay in tackling the issue, the perceived weakness of
its proposed policy and the recent setbacks in Congress have some
criticizing the Pentagon for not taking the issue seriously enough.
"Ultimately, what we really hope to see is resources and leadership on
this issue from the Pentagon," said Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security
think tank in Washington. She also had called for creation of an
internal Pentagon watchdog after investigating the military's links to
sex trafficking in the Balkans.
Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), author of the original legislation
targeting human trafficking, said there seems to be an institutional
lethargy on the issue at the Pentagon below the most senior levels. He
said he was concerned that the Pentagon's overseas-contractor proposal
might not be tough enough and that the delays in developing it could
mean more people "were being exploited while they were sharpening their
pencils."
But he pledged to maintain aggressive oversight of the plan.
`We're addressing the issue'
Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman, said he did not know why it has taken
so long to develop a proposal but said, "From our point of view, we're
addressing the issue."
An official more directly involved with the effort to draft a formal
policy barring contractors from involvement in trafficking said it might
not be ready until April, at least in part because of concerns raised by
the defense contractors.
Bush declared zero tolerance for involvement in human trafficking by
federal employees and contractors in a National Security Presidential
Directive he signed in December 2002 after media reports detailing the
alleged involvement of DynCorp employees in buying women and girls as
sex slaves in Bosnia during the U.S. military's deployment there in the
late 1990s.
Ultimately, the company fired eight employees for their alleged
involvement in sex trafficking and illegal arms deals.
In 2003, Smith followed Bush's decree with legislation ordering federal
agencies to include anti-trafficking provisions in all contracts. The
bill covered trafficking for forced prostitution and forced labor and
applied to overseas contractors and their subcontractors.
But it wasn't until last summer that the Pentagon issued a proposed
policy to enforce the 2003 law and Bush's December 2002 directive.
The proposal drew a strong response from five defense-contractor-
lobbying groups within the umbrella Council of Defense and Space
Industries Associations: the Contract Services Association, the
Professional Services Council, the National Defense Industrial
Association, the American Shipbuilding Association and the Electronic
Industries Alliance.
The response's first target was a provision requiring contractors to
police their overseas subcontractors for human trafficking.
In a two-part series published in October, the Tribune detailed how
Middle Eastern firms working under American subcontracts in Iraq, and a
chain of human brokers beneath them, engaged in the kind of abuses
condemned elsewhere by the U.S. government as human trafficking. KBR,
the Halliburton subsidiary, relies on more than 200 subcontractors to
carry out a multibillion-dollar U.S. Army contract for privatization of
military support operations in the war zone.
Case of 12 Nepali men
The Tribune retraced the journey of 12 Nepali men recruited from poor
villages in one of the most remote and impoverished corners of the world
and documented a trail of deceit, fraud and negligence stretching into
Iraq. The men were kidnapped from an unprotected caravan and executed en
route to jobs at an American military base in 2004.
At the time, Halliburton said it was not responsible for the recruitment
or hiring practices of its subcontractors, and the U.S. Army, which
oversees the privatization contract, said questions about alleged
misconduct "by subcontractor firms should be addressed to those firms,
as these are not Army issues."
Once implemented, the new policy could dramatically change
responsibilities for KBR and the Army.
Alan Chvotkin, senior vice president and counsel for the Professional
Services Council who drafted the contractors' eight-page critique of the
Pentagon proposal, said it was not realistic to expect foreign companies
operating overseas to accept or act on U.S. foreign policy objectives.
"This is a clash between mission execution [of the contract] and policy
execution," Chvotkin said. "So we're looking for a little flexibility."
He said that rather than a "requirement that says you have to flow this
through to everybody," the group wants the policy to simply require
firms to notify the Pentagon when their subcontractors refuse to accept
contract clauses barring support for human trafficking.
Still, Chvotkin said, "We don't want to do anything that conveys the
idea that we are sanctioning or tolerating trafficking."
In a joint memo of their own, Mendelson and another Washington-based
expert, Martina Vandenberg, a lawyer who investigated sex trafficking
for Human Rights Watch, told the Pentagon its draft policy
"institutionalizes ineffective procedures currently used by the
Department of Defense contractor community in handling allegations of
human trafficking."
Without tough provisions requiring referrals to prosecutors, they said,
contractors could still get their employees on planes back to the U.S.
before investigations commenced, as they allege happened in several
documented cases in the Balkans. They said some local contract managers
even had "special arrangements" with police in the Balkans that allowed
them to quickly get employees returned to the U.S. if they were found to
be engaged in illegal activities.
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
U.S. Stalls on Human Trafficking
Pentagon has yet to ban contractors from using forced labor
by Cam Simpson
WASHINGTON - Three years ago, President Bush declared that he had "zero
tolerance" for trafficking in humans by the government's overseas
contractors, and two years ago Congress mandated a similar policy.
But notwithstanding the president's statement and the congressional
edict, the Defense Department has yet to adopt a policy to bar human
trafficking.
A proposal prohibiting defense contractor involvement in human
trafficking for forced prostitution and labor was drafted by the
Pentagon last summer, but five defense lobbying groups oppose key
provisions and a final policy still appears to be months away, according
to those involved and Defense Department records.
The lobbying groups opposing the plan say they're in favor of the idea
in principle, but said they believe that implementing key portions of it
overseas is unrealistic. They represent thousands of firms, including
some of the industry's biggest names, such as DynCorp International and
Halliburton subsidiary KBR, both of which have been linked to
trafficking-related concerns.
Lining up on the opposite side of the defense industry are some human-
trafficking experts who say significant aspects of the Pentagon's
proposed policy might actually do more harm than good unless they're
changed. These experts have told the Pentagon that the policy would
merely formalize practices that have allowed contractors working
overseas to escape punishment for involvement in trafficking, the
records show.
The long-awaited debate inside the Pentagon on how to implement
presidential and congressional directives on human trafficking is
unfolding just as countertrafficking advocates in Congress are running
into resistance. A bill reauthorizing the nation's efforts against
trafficking for the next two years was overwhelmingly passed by the
House this month, but only after a provision creating a trafficking
watchdog at the Pentagon was stripped from the measure at the insistence
of defense-friendly lawmakers, according to congressional records and
officials. The Senate passed the bill last week.
Delay seen as weakness
The Pentagon's delay in tackling the issue, the perceived weakness of
its proposed policy and the recent setbacks in Congress have some
criticizing the Pentagon for not taking the issue seriously enough.
"Ultimately, what we really hope to see is resources and leadership on
this issue from the Pentagon," said Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security
think tank in Washington. She also had called for creation of an
internal Pentagon watchdog after investigating the military's links to
sex trafficking in the Balkans.
Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), author of the original legislation
targeting human trafficking, said there seems to be an institutional
lethargy on the issue at the Pentagon below the most senior levels. He
said he was concerned that the Pentagon's overseas-contractor proposal
might not be tough enough and that the delays in developing it could
mean more people "were being exploited while they were sharpening their
pencils."
But he pledged to maintain aggressive oversight of the plan.
`We're addressing the issue'
Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman, said he did not know why it has taken
so long to develop a proposal but said, "From our point of view, we're
addressing the issue."
An official more directly involved with the effort to draft a formal
policy barring contractors from involvement in trafficking said it might
not be ready until April, at least in part because of concerns raised by
the defense contractors.
Bush declared zero tolerance for involvement in human trafficking by
federal employees and contractors in a National Security Presidential
Directive he signed in December 2002 after media reports detailing the
alleged involvement of DynCorp employees in buying women and girls as
sex slaves in Bosnia during the U.S. military's deployment there in the
late 1990s.
Ultimately, the company fired eight employees for their alleged
involvement in sex trafficking and illegal arms deals.
In 2003, Smith followed Bush's decree with legislation ordering federal
agencies to include anti-trafficking provisions in all contracts. The
bill covered trafficking for forced prostitution and forced labor and
applied to overseas contractors and their subcontractors.
But it wasn't until last summer that the Pentagon issued a proposed
policy to enforce the 2003 law and Bush's December 2002 directive.
The proposal drew a strong response from five defense-contractor-
lobbying groups within the umbrella Council of Defense and Space
Industries Associations: the Contract Services Association, the
Professional Services Council, the National Defense Industrial
Association, the American Shipbuilding Association and the Electronic
Industries Alliance.
The response's first target was a provision requiring contractors to
police their overseas subcontractors for human trafficking.
In a two-part series published in October, the Tribune detailed how
Middle Eastern firms working under American subcontracts in Iraq, and a
chain of human brokers beneath them, engaged in the kind of abuses
condemned elsewhere by the U.S. government as human trafficking. KBR,
the Halliburton subsidiary, relies on more than 200 subcontractors to
carry out a multibillion-dollar U.S. Army contract for privatization of
military support operations in the war zone.
Case of 12 Nepali men
The Tribune retraced the journey of 12 Nepali men recruited from poor
villages in one of the most remote and impoverished corners of the world
and documented a trail of deceit, fraud and negligence stretching into
Iraq. The men were kidnapped from an unprotected caravan and executed en
route to jobs at an American military base in 2004.
At the time, Halliburton said it was not responsible for the recruitment
or hiring practices of its subcontractors, and the U.S. Army, which
oversees the privatization contract, said questions about alleged
misconduct "by subcontractor firms should be addressed to those firms,
as these are not Army issues."
Once implemented, the new policy could dramatically change
responsibilities for KBR and the Army.
Alan Chvotkin, senior vice president and counsel for the Professional
Services Council who drafted the contractors' eight-page critique of the
Pentagon proposal, said it was not realistic to expect foreign companies
operating overseas to accept or act on U.S. foreign policy objectives.
"This is a clash between mission execution [of the contract] and policy
execution," Chvotkin said. "So we're looking for a little flexibility."
He said that rather than a "requirement that says you have to flow this
through to everybody," the group wants the policy to simply require
firms to notify the Pentagon when their subcontractors refuse to accept
contract clauses barring support for human trafficking.
Still, Chvotkin said, "We don't want to do anything that conveys the
idea that we are sanctioning or tolerating trafficking."
In a joint memo of their own, Mendelson and another Washington-based
expert, Martina Vandenberg, a lawyer who investigated sex trafficking
for Human Rights Watch, told the Pentagon its draft policy
"institutionalizes ineffective procedures currently used by the
Department of Defense contractor community in handling allegations of
human trafficking."
Without tough provisions requiring referrals to prosecutors, they said,
contractors could still get their employees on planes back to the U.S.
before investigations commenced, as they allege happened in several
documented cases in the Balkans. They said some local contract managers
even had "special arrangements" with police in the Balkans that allowed
them to quickly get employees returned to the U.S. if they were found to
be engaged in illegal activities.
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune