[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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