In the Water

Asia's Poor Build Bases in Iraq

That's the subtitle of a recent article on Corporate Watch, one of the sites linked on the right side of this blog. The article, titled Blood Sweat and Tears, talks about the subcontracting done by companies such as the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, hiring and super-exploiting migrant workers from Asian countries including the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.

This "invisible army of cheap labor" puts another class angle on the occupation and the giant, permanent bases being constructed to maintain the US presence in Iraq for years to come. As the author, David Phinney, writes:

Tens of thousands of such TNC laborers have helped set new records for the largest civilian workforce ever hired in support of a U.S. war. They are employed through complex layers of companies working in Iraq. At the top of the pyramid-shaped system is the U.S. government which assigned over $24 billion in contracts over the last two years. Just below that layer are the prime contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel. Below them are dozens of smaller subcontracting companies-- largely based in the Middle East --including PPI, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting and Alargan Trading of Kuwait, Gulf Catering, Saudi Trading & Construction Company of Saudi Arabia. Such companies, which recruit and employ the bulk of the foreign workers in Iraq, have experienced explosive growth since the invasion of Iraq by providing labor and services to the more high-profile prime contractors.

For anyone who'd remember, I'd blogged on this issue almost a year ago, linking to some personal stories of migrant workers who had been abused, exploited, and even killed while working as subcontractors for the US military in Iraq. The Phinney article linked above is the latest in a series of required-reading articles on this continuing tragedy.

China top among migrant-sending countries

A quick post about the most recent figures released by the International Organization on Migration (IOM). China ranks number one among migrant-sending countries, meaning that the estimated number of Chinese people working abroad (35 million) is higher than any other country. India ranks second (20 million working abroad), followed by the Philippines (7 million).

The most striking thing is the differences in the way migrants from these countries go abroad. For the Philippines, and increasingly so for India, migration is an industry, an active part of official policy often referred to as 'labor-export'. Migrants from these countries are generally 'placed' abroad officially by a network of governments and recruitment agencies. The money they send home as remittances goes through official channels, and is a major source of revenue for national governments.

Most Chinese migrant workers abroad, however, are undocumented. There is quite a lot of placement through agencies, with Chinese construction workers in Israel for example, but for the most part migrants from China go through unofficial channels, and thus I'd guess that the money they send home also goes through informal processes.

This perhaps accounts for some of the striking differences in the figures for remittances sent home. Despite having the highest number of people working abroad, China is not even in the picture when it comes to the amount of money sent home, with Mexico, the Philippines, India, Egypt, and Morocco being the highest recipients of migrants' remittances.

The amounts of money involved in this process are enormous. One hundred billion US dollars was sent to 'labor-sending countries' as official remittances in 2004, according to the study. There is also another estimated one hundred billion dollars going through informal channels.

As can be expected, attempts to formalize and further control this massive money flow have been increasing, with regional and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank holding meetings, releasing reports, and strategizing on how to cut themselves a slice of the remittance pie. Vijay Prashad recently wrote a great article on the subject of remittances and the political/economic issues involved: I'd say that it's a must-read piece on things which we in the region should all be aware of.

And another good resource for stories on migration in Asia is this website by Inter-Press Services.

'Systematic Exploitation' of Indonesian Migrant Workers

An important report came out a couple of weeks ago regarding the situation of Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong. Titled 'Underpayment: The Systematic Extortion of Indonesian Migrant Workers', the report describes the process by which women from Indonesia are hired by recruitment agencies, sent abroad to work in HK as domestic workers, and returned to Indonesia- while being purposely exploited, abused, and ripped off at every stage of the process. It is based on primary research in both Indonesia and Hong Kong by NGOs, unions, and migrant workers' groups, and is perhaps the first extensive report of its kind.

The mainstream media in HK were quite responsive to the report, and a number of articles in newspapers and TV spots were produced on its findings. While most of these media reports were positive, I don't feel that they managed to capture the full implications of what this study reveals, neither about the lives of migrant workers, nor indeed about us.

The underlying point I would stress among all the specifics of the report is that this underpayment, abuse, and exploitation is systemic, meaning that these practices are not the result of 'bad apples', but the outcomes produced by institutions involved in the migration process. Chiefly these institutions are the Indonesian government and the myriad recruitment agencies, which are for all intents and purposes running a thinly veiled gangsters' racket with the trade in migrants, and making a proportionally greater killing with higher levels of exploitation among Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong.

One is left with a central theme from Andre Vltchek's film Terlena, recently screened in Hong Kong, about the systematic destruction of Indonesian society and economy under the Suharto dictatorship, leaving the country with a set of ultra-exploitative, super-powerful, and mostly unaccountable institutions ravaging the population... the continuing legacy of Suharto's US-backed 'New Order' regime.

But for us in Hong Kong, it is perhaps easier to bring up this point in the mainstream, as so far we are not talking about ourselves (unless we remind ourselves, as media reports have, that 'we' have better laws and should enforce these to a greater degree).

However, while deep-rooted institutional problems are certainly prevalent in Indonesia, the point also has relevance for Hong Kong and other 'receiving countries'. The active nullifying of workers' rights and power over decision making in Indonesia, after all, makes these 'human commodities' more attractive for our consumption, according to the logic of current economic institutions. In this light, oppressive conditions in Indonesia and other countries are not just distant problems that we can remove ourselves from, but active contributors to our own economy and the choices we make.

Thus, while we can and should act on our responsibility towards enforcing the current minimum standards of employment and human rights for migrant workers, we should also question the underlying economic logic that makes attractive the levels exploitation we are all shocked at.

The other point that wasn't stressed so much, but which is also crucial to the issues being discussed, is that of migrant workers' own organizing. The research and release of this study is only one important action taken by migrant workers of all nationalities in Hong Kong, who have in the past couple of decades, organized in their communities, formed unions, and fought for very concrete changes in their conditions (being able to force the government into adopting a minimum wage for foreign domestic workers is perhaps the most obvious example). This organizing is where the real revelations and changes have come from, a point not addressed by any media report that I have seen.

Another point for us to take from this study, then, is that as migrant workers confront the powerful institutions controlling their lives, they will surely need active solidarity and support from many, many people. Working with them along these lines, while at the same time understanding and changing our own economic institutions, are effective ways in which we can make a difference after reading reports like this.

Bangladeshi Migrants' Direct Action in Kuwait

This is a couple of weeks old, but I forgot to post it earlier... seems that hundreds of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Kuwait, pissed off at their exploitation at the hands of employers and governments, recently attacked the Bangladesh Embassy causing "extensive damage" to the building.

Of course, embassy spokespeople were bewildered and wondered what could possibly have caused such impolite behavior. They didn't know there were any problems, and everything could have been resolved "had the workers filed complaints earlier," they said. Of course, nothing could be wrong in migrant workers' lives,  could it? Those scumbag officials.

At least it seems there is now the prospect of something changing, or at least of debate on migrants' issues coming out into the open. Direct action gets the goods, as the saying goes.

This is the report from Lebanon's Daily Star...

800 storm Bangladesh mission in Kuwait
Non-payment of expat workers alleged, 2 wounded, embassy extensively damaged
Staff Correspondent

Some 800 Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait stormed the Bangladesh embassy in Kuwait City yesterday over 'non-payment of their salaries', injuring two people and causing extensive damage.

The protest was reportedly linked to the workers not being paid by a Kuwaiti cleaning company they work for and the embassy's inaction to resolve the problem, but the embassy officials said they had not received any complaint about it.  "Around 150 workers armed with iron rods, hockey sticks, stones and brickbats attacked the embassy office at around 10:30am. They were part of around 800 Bangladeshi workers who arrived on the embassy premises in seven to eight buses," Nazrul Islam Khan, Bangladesh ambassador in Kuwait, told The Daily Star by phone last night.

The protestors pelted stones and brickbats to damage doors and windowpanes of the embassy office. "They also damaged furniture and tore up documents and passports of the Bangladeshi nationals submitted to the embassy for various reasons," Khan said.

The workers were employed in the Kuwaiti cleaning company Nibraj and living in Amgara area, a suburb of Kuwait City, some 45 kilometers off the embassy located in Surrah area of the capital.  A spokesman for the worker told the AFP that their employers had not paid them their wages for the last five months.

The BBC says the workers were able to get inside the building and damage its property.  The ambassador alleged that the attack was pre-planned and launched by an organsied group of the expatriate Bangladeshis. "The workers claimed they are not getting salaries for several months, but the embassy did not receive any complaint about it."  "We could have resolved the problems through negotiation had the workers filed complaints earlier," Khan said.  The workers might have been misguided by some "miscreants" who want to damage the image of the expatiate Bangladeshis living in the Middle East, he observed.  He said some Bangladeshis who came to the embassy office also tried to stop the workers but failed. Later, the embassy called in police who brought the situation under control.

The police also arrested several intruders and started interrogating them. None of the embassy officials or employees was hurt in the attack. But two Bangladeshis who came to the embassy received minor injuries during the melee, the embassy sources said.

State Minister for Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Mohammad Quamrul Islam told The Daily Star that he has ordered the Bangladesh ambassador in Kuwait to conduct an immediate inquiry into the incident and report the finds to the ministry. The minister said his ministry did not receive any complaints of non-payment of salary of Bangladeshi workers in that company. He observed that the workers should have lodged complaints with the embassy before going for such subversive activities.  "I think some people are doing something against the interest of the country," he said.

Around three lakh Bangladeshis work in the oil-rich Middle Eastern country.  Kuwait's job market remained closed to Bangladeshi workers for several years until 2002. Over 40,000 Bangladeshis got employment there last year. Most of workers are manual labourers.

Migrants

Here in Hong Kong I often work with groups who are doing activism and advocacy around migrant workers' issues. Recently at the May Day march here, the contingent of migrant domestic workers from Indonesia and the Philippines was probably its largest and liveliest ever, numbering in the thousands, with drums, costumes, and louder chants than anyone else- giving a much needed boost to the ranks of the demonstration.

This was particularly astonishing to me given the difficulties in organizing among domestic workers, one of the most atomized industries where communication between workers usually ranges from difficult to impossible, for days and weeks at a time. Certainly the movement among migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong has always been active, but now it also seems to be growing in organization, which is great to see!

On a related note, I was interested to see some articles on the theme of migration these last couple of days, albeit from the Europe and the US.

First off, in the aftermath of the British election, Conservative Party leader Michael Howard says that his chums lost several seats due to an insufficient scapegoating of migrants and asylum seekers. This from the party whose billboard election ads read "It's Not Racist To Oppose Immigration".

Over in Spain-- where unlike Britain the pro-invasion of Iraq government was voted OUT and not back in with a reduced majority-- there is more positive news. The government there has apparently given amnesty to 700,000 undocumented migrants, mostly from countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Though over a million people who live and work in Spain and hold up its economy will now be able to stay there without hiding from the police, the right-wing is predictably going gaga over the amnesty move. The newspaper El Mundo warned that

"On the horizon one can detect new avalanches of migrants - encouraged by this process - who could bring with them problems of crime and integration."

Mike Davis, a wonderful writer and educator from California in the US, picked up on this very theme of targeting migrants as 'job-stealers', 'criminals' and 'bringers of disease' in his most recent article. You may have heard about the vigilantes in the SouthWest of the US who call themselves the 'Minutemen' and claim to be confronting would-be migrants from Mexico in the name of patriotism and defense of the country. Davis traces this fear of "avalanches of migrants" back in US history, and places the Minutemen among a trend of racist, anti-migrant and anti-worker vigilante movements that has come about every few decades...

The vigilantes are back. In the 1850s, they lynched Irishmen; in the 1870s, they terrorized the Chinese; in the first decade of the twentieth century, they murdered striking Wobblies; in the 1920s, they organized "Bash a Jap" campaigns; and in the 1930s, they welcomed the Joads and other Dust Bowl refugees with tear gas and buckshot.

 Vigilantes have always been to the American West what the Ku Klux Klan was to the South: vicious and cowardly bigotry organized into a self-righteous mob. Almost every decade, some sinister group of self-proclaimed patriots mobilizes to repel a new invasion from some subversive threat or other.

Another part of the picture, of course, is the level of political support such racist movements get. Davis mentions California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent statements in support of the Minutemen on a right-wing radio show, and another article by Greg Moses from the Texas Civil Rights Review describes how the mob has gone from being "vigilantes" to "citizen volunteers" in much of the corporate media. 

Scary stuff, but these are important things to think about, particularly as many groups in HK are discussing anti-corporate globalization issues in the run-up to the WTO ministerial being held here at the end of the year. Migrant workers are certainly used as scapegoats by politicians, but the issue is also a sticky one for those sections of the 'anti-globalization' movement that play up nationalism or protectionism or the idea of the 'local economy'- a line that's taken by many mainstream labor movements around the world. Hopefully in our context, the level of support and solidarity that migrant workers displayed with local workers and unions on May Day will be reciprocated.

Kartini Day

Sunday, April 17 was Kartini Day, an Indonesian festival that celebrates women's rights and emancipation in education.

A hundreds-strong rally was held by the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union in Victoria Park on Hong Kong island to celebrate and also protest against abuses against migrants by employers, recruitment agencies, and state institutions...

The picture on the left is from the discussion on the WTO and migration that took place towards the end of the day. Union members also gave talks on their own situations, performed drama and dances, played traditional and pop music...

For a great, full description of the Kartini Day celebration and some brief notes on the situation of Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, check out this good report from Asian Labour News.

Progress At The Gates

So the reason yet another update has been delayed is that I've been in Beijing for the past few days. This picture on the left was taken in a village on what is, for now, the outskirts of that city. Once a fully rural area which grew mostly apples and peaches, this old village is now also a temporary home for hundreds of migrant workers from around China who are renting some of the hastily constructed accomodation while they work in the city. Among the migrants cycling around on three-wheeled carts, new cars are parked in front of small brick houses, three or four pool tables stand in a makeshift courtyard, men huddle around each other playing cards, and a young girl with burns covering her face stares at me as she walks past the signs advertising village doctors and barbers. I say 'temporary home' because as you might notice on the right side of the adjacent picture, beyond the field, urban development is fast approaching on the horizon. The buildings visible in the distance weren't there a couple of years ago, according to my friend. And in a couple more months, the village we were in won't be there either. As we walked from the village to the main road, we could already see migrant workers demolishing some of the houses on the outskirts to make way for other structures. Within meters was a four-lane highway, some new concrete buildings, and a mass of construction sites. When I mentioned what a striking experience the village was, I was assured by my friend that this was one of the nicer faces of rural China making way for the city.

Mae Sot

I've written a few posts recently about Thailand lately, focusing on the ever-increasing authoritarianism of the Thaksin government as it becomes an ever-more important US ally, politically, economically, and militarily.

This short post sort of adds a personal angle to the story, I guess. Over the past couple of weeks I've been reading stories about how a friend of mine, Aye Salam, has been facing increasing harassment from the authorities, death threats, and even an attempt on his life. Aye is an 18 year old volunteer translator supporting Burmese migrant workers with legal cases in the town of Mae Sot, near the Thai-Burmese border.

Born and raised in Thailand to Indian parents, Aye has nonetheless been arrested and charged with working without a permit and taking a job restricted to Thai nationals (the question of why he is not a Thai national perhaps gives us an insight into the racist immigration practices of the Thai government towards migrants).

Looking at Aye's work, his harassment is no doubt directly related to his work, and to the lives and condition of factory workers in Mae Sot. That town is more or less universally infamous among labor and migrant activists in Asia, known for its factories that produce garments and footwear for Asian and Western multinationals at cut-rate pries through the violent exploitation of undoumented Burmese migrant workers. As Dan Beeton wrote in a good article for Z Magazine back in 2003:

"...the Burmese human rights atrocities and the endemic poverty ensured that people of various ethnic backgrounds would continue to seek greater freedom and opportunities on the Thai side of the border, a situation that has continued ever since. Migrants cross over seeking both to escape aggression in Burma and to send money back home.

Instead, Burmese migrants in Mae Sot are in constant danger from the Thai police. Harassment is so constant and routine that some migrants almost seem used to it, accepting it as an aspect of daily life. For an outsider, however, the oppression in Mae Sot is unmistakable. Moe Swe tells me that two of his BLSO colleagues have just been jailed. He and other BLSO members try to round up the couple of thousand Baht they will need to bail them out. The bail prices are also arbitrary—seemingly set on a case- by-case basis by the cops in charge that night. 

Burmese in Mae Sot are under constant threat of persecution. Burmese migrants face the hostility of local Thais who, informed by an often-xenophobic media, see them as dirty, disease-carrying job-stealers. Burmese are occasionally the random targets of severe beatings and shootings. The police devote little effort to investigating such incidents or bringing the perpetrators to justice, which is hardly surprising since the Thai police themselves treat the Burmese community in the manner of an occupation force. The authorities periodically conduct street-sweeps—literally blocking off entire blocks in areas like Mae Sot’s busy Burmese market, arresting everyone. They demand identification documents from the arrested, but, of course, many are unable to provide them. Undocumented migrants can expect deportation or time in jail where they are subject to rape, beatings, and other humiliation at the hands of their guards. Immigration officials sometimes also sexually assault Burmese women during the deportation process, and often rob the workers of hard-earned wages and precious belongings just prior to deporting them.  Police frequently raid factories. On July 5, 2000, for example, 7 of Mae Sot’s largest factories were raided and about 10,000 Burmese arrested. Some were deported to Burma, some sent to Thai Immigration detention cells, and others had to go into hiding—including pregnant women and children, who went without food, shelter, or clean water for days. The BLSO came to their aid by providing them with medicine, rice, and temporary shelter."

Constant harassment, of course, keeps the workers afraid, and keeps their labor cheap. But Mae Sot is also known as a site of often-inspiring organizing and action against such violence and exploitation on the part of workers, as well as their supporters such as Aye. So far, the ruling class tactic in the face of such organizing seems to have been to increase the level and variety of their violence...

Anyway, I hear that Aye's OK at the moment, and has friends around him looking out for his safety... still, his case is an indication of the violence that employers, with the collusion of the state apparatus, wield daily against workers in the factories of Mae Sot, and the people who work in solidarity with them.

Below I reprint a surprisingly decent commentary from the Assistant Editor of the Bangkok Post, from late December.

COMMENTARY
A helping hand receives a nasty smack

Sanitsuda Ekachai
When people risk their safety to help the weak and poor, they deserve our admiration and thanks. Don't they? Our labour officials don't think so.

Although Buddhism considers giving one's time and energy to help others of great merit, labour officials in Tak raided a human rights office last week and arrested a young man named Aye Salam for helping migrant workers fight for a better life.

The arrest poses the question of what moral code our officials have to guide their work- if they have one at all.

The border town of Mae Sot in Tak province is a paradise for garment factories seeking cheap labour from repressive Burma. But the workers there suffer hellish lives under severe exploitation and unjust labour laws. Theirs is a life of slavery, deprived of the hope of fair wages, decent working conditions or health services because they do not speak Thai or do not know the Thai labour laws.

The workers' weaknesses empowered the employers so that they preyed on the submissiveness of their labour until such time as human rights groups like the Migrant Assistance Programme and Yaung Chi Oo Burmese Workers' Organisation started up in Mae Sot to help migrant workers enjoy their legal rights.

Their work from a legal perspective is straightforward. They take up the workers' grievances and help them with legal proceedings so they can receive their due wages and compensation in court.

To do this, they need the help of volunteers who can speak to migrant workers in their native Burmese. Aye Salam, 18, is among the very few who has had enough courage to offer this translation help.

Why is courage necessary? Because like his older colleagues who help migrant workers, Aye Salam has been beaten up by well-connected thugs who never get caught. Like his colleagues, he also has received death threats and must live each day with the threat of danger, not knowing when his life might be snatched away.

The raid on Yaung Chi Oo's office and Aye Salam's arrest was clearly a warning to his senior colleagues to close shop. Ironically, the arrest took place at the same time the organisation received an international award in South Korea for protecting the rights of migrant workers.

It is clear who will benefit if the human rights groups leave Mae Sot.

Strikes by workers were unimaginable in the past. No longer. Ditching workers without paying them was also common. To avoid paying wages, the employers just summoned immigration officers to arrest their unregistered workers and deport them post-haste.

Thanks to legal assistance from rights organisations and favourable court decisions, now even unregistered workers are entitled to get wage compensation. For many employers, this is like the sky falling on their heads. This must stop - by hook or by crook.

After being assaulted, Aye Salam was arrested for not having a work permit, a charge that might lead to three months in jail. When blasted by human rights activists, enraged labour officials slapped another charge on him, one carrying five years in prison if proven - for taking a job restricted to Thai nationals.

These charges expose the injustice ethnic immigrants face every day.

Yet, like some 400,000 ethnic immigrants in Thailand, most of whom are hillpeople, Aye Salam is legally entitled to seek Thai nationality. But prejudice keeps these citizenship applications trapped in a bureaucratic maze.

The law does not allow people like Aye Salam even to farm. Since most ethnic immigrants are poor and cannot afford to pay the annual fee of 10,000 baht for a work permit, they are subject to arrest at any time. They survive only by paying extortion money. Instead of amending this inhumane law, labour officials keep it alive to silence ethnic immigrants.

Is this just to punish those who want to right wrongs?

Is it right to kowtow to money and power?

When our labour authorities do not bother to ask these questions, there is little hope for the oppressed- and their defenders.

Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post. Bangkok Post 23 December 2004

Migrant workers support tsunami victims

With every Hong Kong billionaire and his corporate mother currently receiving front page coverage for their charity donations, the excellent weblog Asian Labour News is probably the only place I've seen the efforts of ordinary people in solidarity with the tsunami victims reported. This post from December 29, for example, describes some of the efforts:

There are around 85,000 Indonesian domestic helpers in Hong Kong (the second largest group after Filipinas). Despite their low pay (they are often paid well under the minimum wage) and being denied a day off on Monday (Boxing Day Holiday in Hong Kong), the community has started to raise money for relief efforts back home. This has been difficult because usually they only meet on Sundays, so the drive to raise funds has been conducted by SMS and other means. However, as of this morning they have raised $HK10,000 and organisers expect that on Sunday they will add to this amount considerably.

With the death toll in Indonesia standing at almost 90,000, grassroots organizations such as the Indonesian Migrant Workers' Union (IMWU) and the Hong Kong Coalition of Indonesian Migrant Workers' Organizations (KOTKIHO) have also been raising funds, food, and clothes, and holding special prayer sessions in local mosques to show their solidarity with the tsunami victims and their families. A public campaign on the tsunami and migrants in Hong Kong has also been announced by these organizations as a follow up the collection of funds.

Loki, migrant workers in Iraq

The recent deaths of four Nepalese ex-Gurkha soldiers during a mortar attack in Baghdad's Green Zone has once again highlighted the role of mercenary armies in Iraq. The soldiers were employed by a UK-based private company, Global Risk Strategies, which claims that it is "Working together with the US Government, UN and key commercial clients" in Iraq. 

There are tens of thousands of Nepalese people in Hong Kong, and many of them are ex-Gurkhas and their families. This latest news is sure to be a shock to many over here, but could also be used to highlight the "predatory role", as a friend called it, of private security and mercenary companies in their community. Indeed, Global Risk Strategies advertises Hong Kong as an area of operation on its website (though there is no further information on its activities here).

A few days ago, I posted something about a similar Hong Kong-based company, Loki Risk Management, that had advertised for "high risk bodyguard positions in Iraq and Afghanistan".

The company has now removed the section of its website dealing with "Iraq and Afganistan [sic]", and there is no mention of assignments in those countries. I don't really know what this implies. Was there a business decision to not do business in Iraq and Afghanistan anymore? A business decision to not openly advertise their sending of bodyguards to Iraq and Afghanistan anymore? A reflection of the fact that they were never sending bodyguards to Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place and were only riding on the marketing value of these places as brandnames in the global mercenary industry?

Anything I say now would be largely speculation, of course, so the only thing to do is some more research and investigation on this issue.

Incidentally, I happened to have the original webpage saved on my computer, so you can click on the link to see what was being advertised...

The position of Nepalese people as cheaper mercenaries than their Western counterparts in a sense brings up a feature about occupied Iraq that is not discussed too often: the role of a migrant labor force made up of working-class people from countries in Asia and other parts of the global South that responsible for carrying out a lot of the work being done there.

Though usually attracted to Iraq because of the higher wages relative to other jobs they could get as migrant workers, their dreams are often unrealized, and many end up coming home empty handed. In any case these people are still paid considerably less than US or European workers would be, and are often given the most dangerous tasks to perform.  The Washington Post, for example, reported earlier this year on the "underclass of workers" being created in Iraq.

Cases of working-class migrants being targeted by insurgents have made the papers here in Asia, both famously and infamously. The kidnapping of Filipino migrant Angelo de la Cruz, for example, prompted a massive grassroots movement in the Philippines that succeeded in pressuring President Arroyo's government into withdrawing the country's troops from Iraq. But the inexplicable and unannounced killings of 12 Nepalese migrants shocked the country and prompted rioting and attacks on mosques in Kathmandu.

Of course, it is not just the insurgents in Iraq that are a danger to migrants, as the very nature and method of their employment-- organized by institutions such as the US military, multinational corporations, and Asian governments-- is dangerous, leaving them vulnerable and subject to exploitation and abuse. The stories of Indian migrant workers trafficked by corporations and employment agencies, for example, made the international media earlier this year. Many of the cases of such outright exploitation were directly linked to such US corporations as the Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root:

For an $1,800 fee, the recruiter promised to get the two young south Indian men jobs as butchers on a military base in Kuwait for two years, they said. With salaries of $385 a month, a small fortune by Indian standards, they would join more than three million Indians already working in the Persian Gulf and enriching their families back home.

They mortgaged a relative's house and land, paid the fee and flew to Kuwait in August with two of their friends. What they say they encountered when they got there landed on the front pages of Indian newspapers this week, with one headline declaring "Indians Abused in Iraq" in "U.S. Slave Camps."

Within days, the brothers said, they and their friends found themselves on an American military base in northern Iraq working for a Saudi subcontractor of Kellogg, Brown & Root, or KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. They said their supervisor, who had taken their passports in Kuwait, told them they were obligated to work on the base for six months and could not leave.

Working alongside 200 other laborers, from India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, they first cleaned American latrines and then washed American dishes, the brothers said. Their pay was roughly $150 a month, they said, less than half of what the recruiter had promised.

"We were in hell," said Shahjahan, who returned here with his brother last week. "I told my wife over the phone, `If God wills us, we will meet again.' "

In a ZNet Commentary from earlier this year, Vijay Prashad wrote about the "Abu Ghraib jobs" given to working-class migrants from Asia:

An article in India Abroad newspaper by George Iype (July 16) offers us the testimony of a man from Kerala, Peter Thomas, who worked in Iraq and then returned home empty-handed after six months. Recruited in his home-town to go do catering work in Jordan, Thomas was taken by his sub-contractor against his will to work in the laundry section of a US camp in the so-called Sunni Triangle of Iraq.

Indeed, like the inmates at Abu Ghraib, Asian migrants seem to be regarded as less than human by the US military, and many examples of direct physical and psychological abuse of migrant workers by US soldiers in Iraq have been reported:

Mr. Antony said his Government had taken up the issue of ill-treatment of Indian workers, including Keralites, in the American army camp in Iraq with the Centre. Serious violations of human rights of the workers had occurred. The details had been sent to the Prime Minister, A. B. Vajpayee.

Migrant support organizations and NGOs often use the term "3-D" to  jobs carried out by migrant workers: "dirty", "dangerous", "disdainful". As for the Asian migrants in Iraq themselves, it seems just one 'D' would suffice- 'disposable'.