[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 18 (Monday, February 1, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H394-H395]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRAFFICKING PREVENTION IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CONTRACTING ACT
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(H.R. 400) to require the Secretary of State and the Administrator of
the United States Agency for International Development to submit
reports on definitions of placement and recruitment fees for purposes
of enabling compliance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of
2000, and for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 400
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This bill may be referred to as the ``Trafficking
Prevention in Foreign Affairs Contracting Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) The Department of State and the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID) rely on contractors to
provide various services in foreign countries such as
construction, security, and facilities maintenance.
(2) In certain cases, such as where the employment of local
labor is impractical or poses security risks, Department of
State and USAID contractors sometimes employ foreign workers
who are citizens neither of the United States nor of the host
country and are recruited from developing countries where low
wages and recruitment methods often make them vulnerable to a
variety of trafficking-related abuses.
(3) A January 2011 report of the Office of the Inspector
General for the Department of State, while it found no
evidence of direct coercion by contractors, found that a
significant majority of their foreign workers in certain
Middle East countries reported paying substantial fees to
recruiters that, according to the Inspector General,
``effectively resulted in debt bondage at their
destinations''. Approximately one-half of the workers were
charged recruitment fees equaling more than six months'
salary. More than a quarter of the workers reported fees
greater than one year's salary and, in some of those cases,
fees that could not be paid off in two years, the standard
length of a contract.
(4) A November 2014 report of the United States Government
Accountability Office (GAO-15-102) found that the Department
of State, USAID, and the Defense Department need to
strengthen their oversight of contractors' use of foreign
workers in high-risk environments in order to better protect
against trafficking in persons.
(5) The GAO report recommended that those agencies should
develop more precise definitions of recruitment fees, and
that they should better ensure that contracting officials
include prevention of trafficking in persons in contract
monitoring plans and processes, especially in areas where the
risk of trafficking in persons is high.
(6) Of the three agencies addressed in the GAO report, only
the Department of Defense expressly concurred with GAO's
definitional recommendation and committed to defining
recruitment fees and to incorporating that definition in its
acquisition regulations as necessary.
(7) In formal comments to GAO, the Department of State
stated that it forbids the charging of any recruitment fees
by contractors, and both the Department of State and USAID
noted a proposed Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rule
that prohibits charging any recruitment fees to employees.
(8) However, according to GAO, neither the Department of
State nor USAID specifically defines what constitutes a
prohibited recruitment fee: ``Contracting officers and agency
officials with monitoring responsibilities currently rely on
policy and guidance regarding recruitment fees that are
ambiguous. Without an explicit definition of the components
of recruitment fees, prohibited fees may be renamed and
passed on to foreign workers, increasing the risk of debt
bondage and other conditions that contribute to
trafficking.''.
(9) GAO found that, although Department of State and USAID
guidance requires their respective contracting officials to
monitor compliance with trafficking in persons requirements,
they did not consistently have specific processes in place to
do so in all of the contracts that GAO sampled.
SEC. 3. REPORTS ON DEFINITION OF PLACEMENT AND RECRUITMENT
FEES AND ENHANCEMENT OF CONTRACT MONITORING TO
PREVENT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS.
(a) Department of State Report.--Not later than 180 days
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of
State shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress
a report that includes the matters described in subsection
(c) with respect to the Department of State.
(b) USAID Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) shall
submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report
that includes the matters described in subsection (c) with
respect to USAID.
(c) Matters To Be Included.--The matters described in this
subsection are the following:
(1) A proposed definition of placement and recruitment fees
for purposes of complying with section 106(g)(iv)(IV) of the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C.
7104(g)(iv)(IV)), including a description of what fee
components and amounts are prohibited or are permissible for
contractors or their agents to charge workers under such
section.
(2) An explanation of how the definition described in
paragraph (1) will be incorporated into grants, contracts,
cooperative agreements, and contracting practices, so as to
apply to the actions of grantees, subgrantees, contractors,
subcontractors, labor recruiters, brokers, or other agents,
as specified in section 106(g) of the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7104(g)).
(3) A description of actions taken during the 180-day
period preceding the date of submission of the report and
planned to be taken during the one-year period following the
date of submission of the report to better ensure that
officials responsible for grants, contracts, and cooperative
agreements and contracting practices include the prevention
of trafficking in persons in plans and processes to monitor
such grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements and
contracting practices.
(d) Appropriate Committees of Congress.--In this section,
the term ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means the
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives
and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.
SEC. 4. DEFINITION.
In this Act, the term ``trafficking in persons'' has the
meaning given the term in section 103(9) of the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7102(9)).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan
F. Boyle) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to
include any extraneous material on this bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. ROYCE. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, my coauthor on this bill is the ranking member, Eliot
Engel of New York, and I wanted to thank him as well and our 27
bipartisan cosponsors for their support. This is the Trafficking
Prevention in Foreign Affairs Contracting Act.
As many of our colleagues are aware, we just observed Human
Trafficking Awareness Month, shining a spotlight on what is now tens of
millions of victims every year of what is modern-day slavery. One of
the goals here was increasing the awareness of these crimes against
human dignity.
The scourge of human trafficking now is a worldwide challenge.
Although the vulnerability may be greatest in the developing world,
these crimes also occur here in our own communities.
I am very proud of the work being done in southern California by
members of our Human Trafficking Congressional Advisory Committee where
advocates, law enforcement, service providers, faith-based groups, and
trafficking survivors themselves meet regularly to converse,
coordinate, and plan how to combat human trafficking. Out of that
working group come a lot of good ideas. I want to acknowledge Sara
Catalan who helps me in leading that task force.
This bill is intended to close a gap that exists in protection. The
United States cannot be too careful in ensuring that our overseas
employment
[[Page H395]]
practices do not inadvertently support debt bondage, because that debt
bondage is one of the tools of human traffickers.
At some overseas posts, the State Department and USAID rely on
contractors to provide construction, security, maintenance, and other
services, and these contractors sometimes employ foreign workers
recruited from far away, far-away developing countries where they are
vulnerable to abuses. In particular, the middlemen those contractors
rely on often charge recruitment fees to prospective employees--in
other words, payments for the right to work.
Current law prohibits U.S. contractors from charging foreign workers
unreasonable recruitment fees, and the State Department claims to
prohibit any recruitment fees at all. However, neither State nor USAID
have defined what constitutes a ``recruitment fee,'' and this ambiguity
allows for a loophole that has been exploited. Recruiters simply rename
these fees and continue charging them.
This is a serious problem. We had a report by the State Department
Inspector General in 2011. He found that a majority of the Department's
foreign contract workers in certain Middle East countries were paying
substantial fees to recruiters--and this is what caught our attention--
sometimes more than a year's salary resulting in, in the words of our
Inspector General--in his words--``effective debt bondage.''
A worker from the Philippines performing janitorial services for our
Embassy in Saudi Arabia should not be at risk of shakedowns from
unscrupulous or violent operators.
To ensure that our overseas contracting does not feed such problems,
this bill requires State and USAID to define what prohibited
``recruitment fees'' are and to report to Congress on their plans to
improve contract monitoring, to protect against human trafficking. A
prohibition is only forceful if people understand what is prohibited.
Clarifying these matters will give our contractors the guidance they
need to ensure that our laws and policies are followed by those they
use to recruit foreign workers.
I again want to thank Mr. Engel and all of our cosponsors for their
support of this strongly bipartisan bill which deserves our unanimous
support.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this measure.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Royce and also Ranking Member
Engel for their leadership and for their hard work on this bill.
It seems that every day we see another report about the way modern
slavery touches our lives. Fish caught by an enslaved sailor in
Southeast Asia ends up in our grocery stores. Rare metals that are
needed to power our smartphones are mined through forced labor in
Central Africa. Oranges and tomatoes grown right here in the United
States are picked by migrants who end up trapped and isolated.
Human trafficking is a crime that affects every nation on Earth. It
undermines stability, fuels criminal networks, and robs tens of
millions of people of their basic freedom. It touches all of our lives.
United States Government has long been a leader in the fight against
trafficking. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have
focused hard on the best way to prevent modern slavery, protect its
victims, and prosecute those responsible. The State Department's Annual
Trafficking in Persons Report is the global gold standard for assessing
how well governments are doing to combat this problem.
As we learn more and more about this crime, how it has worked its way
into the global supply chain and labor market, we find new ways of
disrupting trafficking networks. Part of American leadership on this
issue must be to make sure, first and foremost, that we are not making
this problem worse.
Our foreign affairs agencies employ thousands of foreign contract
workers overseas. These men and women work in construction, food
service, and security projects abroad.
In 2011, inspectors interviewing some of these workers found that 77
percent of them had paid recruiting fees to the company arranging the
work. What that means is before workers are able to get these jobs,
they need to pay a recruiter a hefty sum. Sometimes these fees are 6
months' or even a year's wages. These fees can include the high costs
of housing or transportation to a worksite in a foreign country. So
often, a worker arrives at a new job saddled with debt and is forced to
work until he or she can pay the so-called recruiter back.
This sort of treatment is unacceptable under any circumstances. The
fact that this is happening to individuals working for the United
States Government is absolutely intolerable.
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