Ms. Magazine - "Paradise Lost", Making a Difference for Women in Marianas

I received this in an email from Ms. Magazine and wanted to share it with all of you. I am attempting to post this as they sent it. Please take the time to read and respond.

This is a very important subject and needs to be kept alive. This is not the only place stuff like this is happening, so let us not stop here.

Dear ...,

"Paradise Lost" - the explosive Ms. magazine investigative report on the appalling conditions of guest workers in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory - is making news again as Congress finally acts to stop the worst abuses. Congress has already delivered a victory for the guest workers in the Marianas by including them in the recently passed minimum wage increase.

Ms.'s hard-hitting cover story brought to the nation's attention the labor and immigration abuses that were the focus of a Senate committee hearing last Thursday. When we published our investigative report last spring, we spurred weeks of additional news coverage and generated widespread public outrage. Two of the women we interviewed for our report - including a young woman trafficked into the sex industry against her will - testified at the Senate hearing.

Make a special contribution to the Ms. Investigative fund today to ensure that Ms. continues to break stories of vital importance to women here in the U.S. and around the world.

Here's the background on the situation:

Although the name-brand clothing companies that contract with garment factories in the Marianas can attach "Made in Saipan (USA)" or simply "Made in the USA" labels to their clothes, until now they have been exempt from U.S. minimum-wage and immigration laws.

Women trafficked to the Marianas, mostly from China and the Philippines, work up to 20 hours a day in factories at a sub-minimum wage of $3.05/hour in often dangerous conditions. In its report, Ms. detailed how these women find themselves in a situation akin to indentured servitude as they struggle to earn enough money to pay for room and board and to repay human traffickers who charge as much as $7,000 for a one-year contract to work in the Marianas.

Moreover, with expiring trade agreements, some companies have closed down their Saipan operations to move to mainland China, leaving their workers stranded and owed months of back-pay. Ms.'s investigative report documented how, unable to make ends meet, many women have been forced to work in the islands' sex tourism industry in order to survive.

Now, with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff (who lobbied on behalf of Marianas factory owners) in prison, Tom DeLay (a leading supporter of garment-company interests) out of Congress, and other opponents of reform defeated in the November elections, Congress may finally be able to pass long-blocked reforms.

Ms.'s in-depth reporting on the suffering of women in the
Northern Marianas is the kind of ground-breaking investigative journalism that truly changes lives. We are determined to continue to follow this story, and dispatched a reporter to cover the hearings. Look for updates on MsMagazine.com and in upcoming issues of the magazine.

Help Ms. stay strong by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Ms. Investigative Fund now.

For a Strong Feminist Media,

Katherine
Spillar
Executive Editor

Eleanor Smeal
Publisher

http://www.msmagazine.com

Copyright © Ms. Magazine 2006

Worn in the USA

While this isn't particularly recent news, it does seem to be vastly underreported. Most of us are aware of the wretched conditions that many clothing factories operate under. Some of us have even made deliberate attempts to refrain from supporting companies that make their profits on the backs of slave labor and have chosen to instead spend our own hard earned wages buying American made products, believing that we are not perpetuating the problem. But, unbeknownst to most, many of those same garments are being manufactured in the Mariana Islands, a territory of the United States, and can legally tout the label "Made in the USA".

The overwhelming majority of the workers in the Marianas are immigrants who were promised a better life only to be placed in sweatshops, working long hours under grueling conditions for little pay and with none of the benefits that we have come to enjoy here in the States, albeit seemingly in decline. Many young women, lured with the vow of employment in the restaurant business, have instead been forced into prostitution and some have even been made to undergo abortions.

The Marianas frequent visitors have included Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. It is often used as a playground for important politicos and DeLay, who squandered countless tax dollars there, after what was to be an oversight tour of conditions there, once announced at a New Year's Eve party attended by many of the factory owners, "You represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America."

I doubt that the American public would proudly exclaim that we stand for inhumane working conditions, sex slavery, and forced abortions. Do the people who represent you?

For more information, please see:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/09/real.delay/

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=647725&page=1

The Silent Screams of Women and Girls

Please take the time to read the entire script of this stunning piece by Lily Mazahery. She is a Persian-American Attorney who is also an activist for women's rights.

The Silent Screams of Women and Girls

Iran's new Islamic-guided government has established a system of legalized prostitution, through the practice of "sigheh" or "temporary marriages," by which a mullah arranges a "legal union" between a man and a girl (some as young as nine years old) for a fee. The so-called marriage can last anywhere from one hour to 99 years. Under this system, men are free to enter into as many temporary marriages as they so desire, without having any legal obligation or responsibility toward the women and children that they "marry" only to use as sexual objects and slaves.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1167467739732&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Please also take the time to sign the following petitions. There will be English links:

http://www.we-change.org/spip.php?article19

http://www.meydaan.com/Stoning/petition.aspx?cid=46&pid=9

This is an issue completely separate of the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the possible imminent attack on Iran. This is a human rights issue and should not be ignored.

UN Troops in South Sudan Raping Children

While this isn't the first time these allegations have surfaced, I believe that not enough attention has been devoted to it. Unlike our current and soon to be former US representative at the UN, John Bolton, I don't believe that the UN is useless and should be dismantled. However, I do think that it needs to to be revamped in many areas. It needs to be strengthened while being held accountable for all that it does. That would include removal and prosecution of criminals that run amok who are supposed to be stopping the very actions that they themselves are committing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070103/wl_nm/un_sudan_peacekeepers_dc_1