U.S. tax dollars tied to human trafficking, report alleges | Chicago Tribune

U.S. tax dollars tied to human trafficking, report alleges | Chicago Tribune: "Washington Bureau
Published June 6, 2006

U.S. tax dollars tied to human trafficking, report alleges

WASHINGTON -- For the first time since Congress mandated its annual publication, a State Department report cataloging human trafficking across the globe includes allegations that American taxpayers financed such abuses.

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Yet this year's report includes a special section on reforms the Defense Department instituted after an investigation prompted by "Pipeline to Peril," a series published by the Tribune in October that detailed human trafficking into Iraq for privatized U.S. military support operations.

Brokers and subcontractors from Asia to the Middle East have worked in concert to import thousands of laborers into Iraq from impoverished countries, often employing fraud or coercion along the way, seizing workers' passports and charging recruitment "fees" that make it difficult for workers to escape employment in the war zone.

U.S. military leaders in Iraq have acknowledged confirming widespread abuses against such workers, who are brought to Iraq to do menial labor on U.S. bases for contractors and subcontractors. Those businesses ultimately receive their checks from the U.S. government. The abuses corroborated by military investigators included violations of U.S. human-trafficking laws."