[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10911-10912]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



     HUMAN TRAFFICKING FOR FORCED LABOR IN AN AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to call your attention to a 
scandal in an American commonwealth. It is a scandal that involves 
forced labor and sex trade workers. It's not a pretty picture. It is a 
picture of a tropical paradise destroyed by greed and corruption.
  In the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, foreign workers 
have been imported in mass to assemble goods for export to the United 
States. Taking advantage of loopholes in our immigration and labor 
laws, foreign businessmen use the Mariana Islands as a base to export 
garments to the United States. These foreign businessmen pay no export 
taxes, and their goods are not subject to textile quotas. Their workers 
are paid below minimum wage levels, if paid at all, and often live in 
deplorable conditions.
  Women from Asia and Russia are imported with the promise of high 
paying jobs in the United States only to find themselves marooned with 
no means of escape, forced to work as prostitutes in the booming 
Mariana sex trade.
  This long-running scandal has been exposed once again by the Global 
Survival Network. This American-based nongovernmental organization 
which uncovers human rights violations sent an undercover team to the 
CNMI to gather evidence on the continued use of forced labor in the 
commonwealth. They have just issued their report which was the subject 
of an ABC News segment on ``20/20.'' If you did not see the television 
broadcast, please read the report which I am sending to every Senator.
  Entitled ``Trapped: Human Trafficking for Forced Labor in The 
Commonwealth of The Northern Mariana Islands (a U.S. Territory),'' the 
report demonstrates in disturbing detail the continued trafficking of 
humans for indentured labor in factories and sex trade emporiums in the 
Marianas. Implicating organized crime groups from the People's Republic 
of China, South Asia, and Japan, the report estimates that there are 
about 40,000 indentured workers in the CNMI, earning about $160 million 
in profits for criminal syndicates.
  Indentured workers are being used to manufacture ostensibly as ``Made 
in the USA'' garments for export to the United States. None of these 
goods are required to be shipped to the U.S. on U.S.-flag ships in 
accordance with the Jones Act. This duty-free, quota-free zone in which 
foreign workers produce high value goods at below minimum wage is an 
entirely legal scheme for Chinese and other foreign manufacturers to 
bypass American textile quotas.
  The report also graphically details the increasing use of CNMI's 
loose immigration standards to make this former tropical paradise a 
major center for the booming Asian sex trade. Women from Asia and 
Russia are being lured to the Northern Marianas with promises of work 
opportunities in the United States only to find themselves imprisoned 
on islands from which there is no escape unless they agree to their 
employer's demands that they become prostitutes and sex hostesses. This 
sick trade in prostitution must be stopped.
  Loopholes in the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Fair Labor 
Standards Act of 1938 need to be plugged as soon as possible. I hope 
you will join me in ending this deplorable situation in which men and 
women are being used virtually as slaves on an American commonwealth.
  Their report makes many important recommendations. Let me call your 
attention to four key issues which the Congress could and should act 
upon this year:
  Extend the Immigration and Nationality Act to the CNMI;
  Extend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to the CNMI;
  Revoke the CNMI's ability to use the ``Made in the USA label'' unless 
more than 75 percent of the labor that goes into the manufacture of the 
garment comes from U.S. citizens and/or aliens lawfully admitted to the 
U.S. for permanent residence, and other appropriately legal 
individuals; and
  Revoke the CNMI's ability to transport textile goods to the United 
States free of duties and quotas unless the garments meet the above 
criteria.
  This week's report prepared by the Global Survival Network is not the 
first analysis raising concerns about conditions in the CNMI. In recent 
years, a chorus of criticism has surfaced about the Commonwealth.
  For example, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reports that 
the

[[Page 10912]]

CNMI has no reliable records of aliens who have entered the 
Commonwealth, how long they remain, and when, if ever, they depart. A 
CNMI official testified that they have ``no effective control'' over 
immigration in their island.
  The bipartisan Commission on Immigration studied immigration and 
indentured labor in the CNMI. The Commission called it ``antithetical 
to American values,'' and announced that no democratic society has an 
immigration policy like the CNMI. ``The closest equivalent is Kuwait,'' 
the Commission found.
  The Department of Commerce found that the territory has become ``a 
Chinese province'' for garment production.
  The CNMI garment industry employs 15,000 Chinese workers, some of 
whom sign contracts that forbid participation in religious or political 
activities while on U.S. soil. China is exporting its workers, and its 
human rights policies, to the CNMI. Charges of espionage by China and 
security lapses in U.S. nuclear weapons labs have justifiably raised 
serious concerns in Congress. Every Member of Congress should be 
equally concerned with the imposition of Chinese human rights standards 
on American soil.
  The CNMI is becoming an international embarrassment to the United 
States. We have received complaints from the Philippines, Nepal, Sri 
Lanka, and Bangladesh about immigration abuses and the treatment of 
workers.
  Despite efforts by the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations to 
persuade the CNMI to correct these problems, the situation has only 
deteriorated.
  After years of waiting for the CNMI to achieve reform, the time for 
patience has ended. Conditions in the CNMI are a looming political 
embarrassment to our country.
  I urge the Senate to respond by enacting S. 1052, bipartisan reform 
legislation introduced by my colleagues on the Senate Energy and 
Natural Resources Committee, Chairman Murkowski and Senator Bingaman.
  I urge the Senate to move on this measure as quickly as we can.
  Ms. COLLINS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  (The remarks of Ms. Collins pertaining to the introduction of S. 1124 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, are we in morning business, and are there 
time limits?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business until 10:15. 
The Senator is authorized to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  Mr. GORTON. I thank the Chair.

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