By Molly Boigon, Andrew W. Lehren, Laura Strickler, Courtney Kube, Anna Schecter and Yousef H. Alshammari -
NBC News
Abdulla thought he had the chance of a lifetime before him.
After facing difficulties finding work in his native Bangladesh, a recruiter offered him the opportunity to work in a restaurant thousands of miles away in Kuwait City for a monthly salary equivalent to $660.
There was a catch: He would have to pay a $10,250 recruiting fee to get the job, but he thought it was worth it.
She says that her mother took out loans to cover expenses and she flew to Kuwait in January 2016. She was 21 years old.
Abdulla says that when he arrived he found a series of broken promises.
I wouldn't work in a restaurant.
Instead he says,
the company that hired him, Tamimi Global Co,
put him to wash dishes
at Camp Buehring, a US Army base in Kuwait.
The immigrant assures that his salary was about 260 dollars, less than half of what was promised, and that
he worked 12 hours a day without days off for almost three years.
Abdulla, who asked not to reveal his real name for fear of reprisals, signed a contract and handed over his passport to his employers.
He is one of 400 employees who have done the same.
“What could we do?” he says.
“I missed my mother.
She cried every day”.
Abdulla is one of thousands of people who have allegedly been trafficked to work for private contractors on US military bases, where workers have been underpaid, charged recruitment fees that have left them in debt. and they have been pressured into signing improper contracts and working excessive hours, according to government reports.
In some cases, they have even
faced physical abuse.
Foreign workers are crucial to the operation of the more than 700 US military bases around the world.
They usually perform tasks such as serving food, cleaning barracks and guarding bases.Liza Evseeva / NBC News
NBC News, in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Washington Post and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, interviewed
more than 40 current and former employees
of private contractors on military bases.
NBC News, the sister network of Noticias Telemundo, reviewed thousands of pages of congressional testimony, Justice and Defense Department reports, Securities and Exchange Commission files and other documents to reveal which companies were accused of trafficking workers and which were He showed them the crime.
What NBC News found was a lack of transparency, both in what the Pentagon is willing to share with the public about this alleged
taxpayer-funded abuse of workers
, and what its officials share with each other and with other agencies about companies with problematic incidents.
From fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2021, the military itself took action in 176 incidents of labor violations by contractors and subcontractors, according to State Department records reviewed.
The military substantiated
violations involving more than 900 workers
in fiscal year 2020 alone, according to the Justice Department.
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Although that information is supposed to be public, the Pentagon did not want to reveal the names of the contractors who committed violations, despite multiple requests for information, including several requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA, in English). .
Federal regulations state that company names and violation information must be entered into a database.
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last year that military hiring officials did not enter information about violations into that database.
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GAO also noted that Army investigators and the Pentagon inspector general were underreporting the results of their own investigations into human trafficking, and that the Pentagon takes little action to flag companies that have trafficked workers.
For at least six years, military officials have not flagged any companies in the database.
This means that the government's lack of transparency is both internal and external.
Because defense officials do not share information about human trafficking with each other or with other agencies, contracting officials across the government may not know that they are offering new contracts to companies that have committed crimes in the past.
And those companies keep getting contracts and making money.
According to an NBC News analysis, at least 10 companies with proven human trafficking violations since 2007
have received billions in new government contracts.
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"Our taxpayers' money is potentially being used to support forced labor and human trafficking, and that's simply unacceptable," said Latesha Love, director of the GAO's International Affairs and Trade team, who has investigated human trafficking. people on US military bases.
"The way [the workers] are treated is similar to what some might call modern day slavery."
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Tamimi, Abdulla's employer, said the company could not comment "on generalizations about former staff or ongoing proceedings."
Tamimi said the company is "an excellent employer who cares a lot about their staff."
Abdulla is still in Kuwait but no longer works on a military base or for Tamimi.
Companies with multi-million dollar contracts
Foreign workers are crucial to the more than 700 military bases with US service members around the world.
They often perform tasks such as
serving food, cleaning barracks, and guarding bases.
In many cases, they do not come from the countries where these bases are located.
Instead, they are flown in from other countries with fewer job opportunities, such as
Bangladesh, Nepal, India and the Philippines.
Between April and June alone, the US Central Command, which has service members at nearly 100 bases in the Middle East, including Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, reported that its contractors employed nearly 20,300 workers, nearly 9,000 were from other countries.
Workers who are not from the country where the military base is located or from the United States tend to be paid less, according to experts.
The growth of foreign workers has intensified during the last two decades, due in part to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"There was a need for labor that wasn't anticipated, so that's where this outsourcing system really comes in that becomes something of the Wild West," said Adam Moore, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who wrote a book about America's reliance on foreign labor for its military bases.
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Although the United States now has fewer combat troops in the Middle East, there are still thousands of soldiers and civilians deployed to bases in the region and Africa.
There is also a growing number of US troops serving in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.
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One of the companies that continues to get work on bases in the Middle East despite past violations documented in an Army compliance agreement is Tamimi, which employed Abdulla.
Since 2007, the company has received $277 million in contracts.
Saudi Arabia-based Tamimi currently has a Defense Department contract worth at least $10.1 million to supply food to US facilities.
A former Tamimi director pleaded guilty in US federal court in 2006 to fraud, and in 2009 to witness tampering.
Tamimi paid a $13 million fine in September 2011 to settle criminal and civil charges of illegal bribes and gratuities.
Due to labor violations, the company entered into an administrative compliance agreement in July 2017, despite the Army's assertion that it had "sufficient legal basis" to bar Tamimi from future contracts.
Little oversight of human trafficking
The government has devoted time and resources to combating trafficking—including two presidential executive orders and multiple laws and regulations—and claims to have a "zero tolerance policy."
The Pentagon has created an office to combat human trafficking, and criminal investigators and military recruiting officers also investigate allegations.
But according to a review by the Defense Department's Office of Inspector General in 2019,
oversight is scant.
Over the last five years, the Defense Department has referred at least one trafficking case for prosecution by the Justice Department and has debarred at least seven contractors or subcontractors, according to State Department reports.
However, in the majority of the 176 cases of verified labor violations, the solutions were administrative actions that included increased supervision.
When it comes to human trafficking, GAO described a culture of confusion and apathy in the Department of Defense.
According to the agency, some Army and Navy contracting officials were not even aware of their responsibilities in preventing human trafficking.
"If you don't look for (infractions), you're unlikely to find them," GAO's Love said.
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The Pentagon's lack of transparency about violations makes it difficult for lawyers and others who help foreign workers on military bases, especially in the Middle East, to work, said William Gois, regional coordinator for the Asia Migrant Forum, an organization that brings together lawyers, churches and others who help some 25,000 workers who face trafficking annually in the Middle East and Asia.
"Because of the secretive nature of a lot of what's going on," he said, "it's been very difficult to tackle."
The inspector general reported a case in 2019 of a defense contractor providing meals in Kuwait.
The report cites an Army memo stating that the contractor "was aware that he promulgated an exorbitant recruitment quota that created a state of slavery for his employees."
The Army memo also stated that the "accommodations it provided did not have access to potable water, were unsanitary, and were infested with bedbugs."
The inspector general's report, however, does not name the contractor.
Commander Nicole Schwegman, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said: “The Department of Defense promotes the United States Government's zero-tolerance policy with respect to human trafficking.
The Department continues to work diligently to combat human trafficking because these activities violate human rights and undermine our national security mission."
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In a statement, an Army spokesman said: “Preventing human trafficking is a top priority for the Army.
We take all allegations seriously and investigate each one to ensure compliance with applicable laws.”
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Work "in fear"
In the Middle East and Afghanistan, reports of worker violations have continued even as the US military footprint has receded.
This year, 22 Ugandans hired by Virginia-based private security company Triple Canopy as guards at Forward Operating Base Shorab, a US base in Afghanistan, filed a federal lawsuit against the company, alleging labor trafficking violations.
They alleged that
their passports were improperly confiscated
for months, preventing them from leaving or looking for another job.
They claimed they faced “fear, intimidation and insecurity” from Triple Canopy, including threats of dismissal.
Among other allegations, they said they were considered independent contractors, not full-time employees, even though they worked long hours with little time off.
That distinction meant they
were not entitled to medical care
despite regularly facing repeated attacks by Taliban fighters that left several of the guards injured.
A supervisor told the workers they should "feel lucky" to work for Triple Canopy, according to their testimony.
The 22 workers say they were wrongfully terminated in December 2020 after raising questions about money they say was improperly withheld from their $500 monthly paycheck.
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Triple Canopy denied the allegations and has argued that the workers, because they are in Uganda, lack the capacity to sue in federal court.
The lawsuit is ongoing.
Triple Canopy did not respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time Triple Canopy has come under scrutiny.
The bipartisan Congressional Commission on Wartime Recruitment in Iraq and Afghanistan found more than a decade ago that Triple Canopy
was failing to provide adequate outerwear
to Ugandan guards at a military base in Iraq.
Uthuman Kimuli, a Ugandan who is not a party to the litigation, was employed by Triple Canopy at Jalalabad Airfield in Afghanistan in 2019 and 2020, and he told NBC News that he worked 12-hour days but was only paid eight hours a day. almost two months.
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The 35-year-old claimed that workers only received one set of gloves and a mask a day during the coronavirus pandemic, even though as security guards they screened visitors to the compound.
"We worked in fear," he
said.
Triple Canopy has received more than 350 federal government contracts since 2007, worth more than $4 billion, and currently has contracts with the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.
Sam McCahon, a former Army fraud consultant and current attorney for military contractors, now represents alleged victims of human trafficking, including the Ugandan workers in the lawsuit against Triple Canopy.
The expert says the Army does little to prevent human trafficking and
relies heavily on low-paid workers to maintain its overseas bases.
"You cannot reconcile this business model with the government's zero tolerance policy," he said.
"(The problem) is institutionalized."