Thread by @ICIJorg

Nearly 28 million people around the globe are estimated to be trapped in jobs so oppressive that they amount to modern slavery.

#TraffickingInc, a new ICIJ reporting collab, examines what is said to be the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise. 🧵bit.ly/3FpMW2s

2/ #TraffickingInc uncovers the people, companies, and business practices that draw profit from different forms of coerced labor across borders — and the well-known employers and entities that human trafficking is linked to. bit.ly/3DhXk9y

3/ First up in #Trafficking Inc., — an investigation co-reported by ICIJ, @washingtonpost, @NBCNews and @ARIJNetwork reveals that many foreign workers for defense contractors on US military bases in the Gulf are trapped by abusive employment practices. bit.ly/3FiS601

4/ “People have been stuck there for years ... The company doesn’t want to pay new laborers more money,” says Anil Lama, a former IT worker at an American military installation in Kuwait. He's one of dozens of migrant workers we interviewed for this story. bit.ly/3FiS601

5/ The US military operates more than a dozen bases in the Middle East, used to wage wars, fight terrorists and pursue regional geopolitical interests, and is deeply dependent on defense contractors and their legions of migrant hires to keep them running. bit.ly/3FiS601

6/ Foreign workers for defense contractors on at least 4 US military bases in the Gulf say abusive labor practices prevent them from returning home or even looking for better work in the region — an issue that’s been repeatedly flagged in recent years. bit.ly/3FiS601

7/ Migrants seeking work in the Gulf can face onerous debts after paying outside recruiters exorbitant fees.

“Although I knew [the fee] wasn’t legal, I had no choice,” says Dilip Gurung, a Nepali who took a job in Qatar with defense subcontractor KRH. bit.ly/3FiS601

8/ The fees can run up to thousands of dollars and are often financed with high-interest loans, requiring migrants paid as little as $1/hour to work for several years at potentially exploitative jobs, unable to quit before they’ve paid off their debts. bit.ly/3FiS601

9/ Thousands of workers who travel to the Gulf seeking jobs vital for supporting relatives back home – though the pay is often low and the hours long – are also vulnerable due to the local “kafala system,” which gives employers wide control over them. bit.ly/3FiS601

10/@USGAO investigated working conditions at military bases last year, finding that recruitment fees can put workers into “debt bondage” and asking @DeptofDefense to boost oversight of contractors and reporting of internal human trafficking investigations. bit.ly/3FiS601

11/ #TraffickingInc focuses on labor and sex trafficking – both growing global phenomena exacerbated by the pandemic – detailing how immigration laws in many countries make migrant workers vulnerable and highlighting untold stories of hardship and abuse. bit.ly/3NaC5v2

12/ ​​ICIJ partner @gbh investigated human trafficking in Massachusetts, exposing flaws in U.S. protections for trafficked workers and authorities’ failures to punish labor traffickers who prey on vulnerable workers. bit.ly/3gNwuyy

13/ Got a story tip, documents,​ ​photos, video​ ​clips​ or leads you want to share with ICIJ and the global reporting team behind #TraffickedInc?

Get in touch at [e-mail] or explore other ways to contact us securely. icij.org/leak/

14/ More #TraffickedInc stories will be published by ICIJ and media partners in the coming months.

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