Rinku Sen

Asian Workers Indentured to Private Firms in Iraq

On Friday, ColorLines
magazine released its web-only feature story Doing the Dirty Workin which Pratap Chatterjee reports on the use and abuse of Asian by private American contractors in Iraq. Chatterjee says that because of pressure to reduce numbers of American troops in Iraq, companies have imported poor migrant workers from the Phillipines and South Asia. They service the U.S. military as cooks, carpenters and beauticians. Called "Third Country Nationals" or TCNs, these workers are denied routine protections. Here’s a quote from Punjabi workers who paid $2700 to be transported not to Dubai, but to Baghdad and Mosul, where they "were locked up in a small area which had a heavy wiring all around. We were made to do menial tasks for U.S. soldiers like picking up their excreta, washing their clothes, picking up their cigarette butts—all this for $US50 a month, and a plate of boiled rice once a day. If we raised our voice we were tortured."

In coordination with the release of Robert Greenwald's new documentary, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, ColorLines and its progressive media partners are covering the issues and individuals impacted by privatization in Iraq. All media partners are members of The Media Consortium , a new network of leading progressive independent journalism organizations. Check out other stories on Alternet, the American Prospect and In These Times.

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Posted at 11:01 AM, Sep 12, 2006 in
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