Agencies in CNMI urged to stand strong

Transcript

The head of an NGO in the Northern Marianas which helps victims of human rights abuses says law enforcement agencies need to remain vigilant in the fight against human trafficking.

The US State Department's newly released 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report has identified the CNMI as a transit location for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking.

The CNMI and Guam's classifications, along with other US territories' have not changed from last year's report.

Bridget Tunnicliffe asked the president of Pacific Ombudsman for Humanitarian Law, Pamela Brown Blackburn, what kind of people come to them for help.

PAMELA BROWN BLACKBURN: We see girls that are under the age of consent, like under eighteen, working in prostitution etc and oftentimes, that's happening domestically as well as foreign. What's come to light in the CNMI and Guam also is that the victims aren't just confined to aliens coming in to the CNMI. It's happening domestically to people in Micronesia and within our own communities of Guam and the CNMI. So that's been a big awaekening, I know for Guam and it's becoming more and more important to the community leaders here in the CNMI now. And we're lucky enough to have a Governmor and Attorney-General and department of Public Safety commissioner who embrace that fact and are taking pro-active stances working with our NGOs and other federal law enforcement to address the issue, instead of simply denying it exists.

BRIDGET TUNNICLIFFE: What kind of people are most vulnerable to trafficking?

PBB: Normally what we find is - as you know we had a huge garment industry so in the CNMI that huge garment industry was controlled by the fact that many Chinese and Fillipino workers as well as workers from all over South Asia were coming here under CNMI immigration law because they control their own immigration and this is before the Trafficking Victims Protection Act that they were being brought here under what falls within the per se definition of trafficking. They signed recruitment contracts in a country of origin where their fees were deducted by their employer here in the CNMI, their passports were confiscated when they were kept inside of barracks with walls around them with wires and all of that. So the garment industry, because of issues that involve the global textile industries, basically closed their last shop in 2008 here, last factory. But many of the workers did not leave and they became victimised under various situations where they had to earn a living and turned to prostitution. But then the prostitution led to more forced... they were told they were going to work in a bar and the bar became a brothel and then they were shipped out and would  be sold for the night to customers etc. In Guam I know their major issues are more related to massage palours and to labour trafficking where they have had huge cases involving labour construction workers that are brought under H2A which is the US immigration status for temporary workers to come in to fill positions that Guam just don't have people to fill. And then they are not paid, again held under the same type of circumstances as we saw here in the CNMI in the garment industry only not as aggregious.

BT: Are the authorities in the CNMI for instance, do you think they are taking it seriously enough?

PBB: Yes. I am quite pleased. This is a recent development, this only happened when the former governor resigned and the former attorney general fled. Both of those happened early on in 2013 and when those occured things took a true about face. The government has been very supportive of our goals of working together to educate the community, train the community and investigate and prosecute every case that comes forward. And that is supported by his appointed Attorney General and his appointed police commissioner. So on the local side it has been very, very robust in their actions, and on the federal side we are seeing more and more cases being brought into the US District Court and more and more convictions.

BT: Is there anything else you would like to see happen that you think would help combat the problem?

PBB: I would like to see a more robust involvement with the immigration and custom services which is a portion of the Department of Homeland Security, which is our immigration investigation unit, office, within the Department of Homeland Security US Federal Agency. It would be helpful if they would be more active and more supportive of our combined efforts. But still we are making progress and I am happy with that. Of course we need more researchers because we're out in the middle of nowhere and it's very hard for me to understand just how easy it is to get in and out of the CNMI and Guam and once you're there you can blend quite quickly. And economically, this is my opinion, but we've had such economic challenges in the past eight years, it's been very difficult to turn away any type of investors for the local politicians and so often those investors are not the best investors that we should have here. And they come, like when the garment industry was here, they weren't necessarily, they didn't see human rights in the same light as we in the West see it. They don't see it as illegal some of the things they do, where we would hold it to a different standard.