LONDON, Dec 28 (NNN-XINHUA) – Findings from a multi-year investigation, have exposed a longstanding issue of “modern-day slavery” in the U.S. agricultural industry, as people were smuggled from Central American countries to the United States, and imprisoned as contracted farmworkers, The Guardian reported.
The investigation, which was launched into a massive human smuggling and labour trafficking operation, based in southern Georgia, that extended to Florida and Texas, has led to the indictment of two dozen defendants on federal conspiracy charges in Oct.
At least two workers died, as a result of the living and working conditions, and another was repeatedly raped, it said, citing the indictment.
“Farmworkers in the U.S., especially immigrant workers … are regularly subjected to abuses ranging from high occurrences of sexual assault and harassment, wage theft and safety issues, including injuries, fatalities on the job, and exposure to hazardous chemicals,” the report said.
They have few protections, as they are excluded from the National Labour Relations Act, passed in 1935, and the Fair Labour Standards Act of 1938, it noted.
Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research, at the Economic Policy Institute, a U.S. thinktank, was quoted as saying that, a severe lack of labour law enforcement in the U.S. agricultural industry, was a driving factor in widespread abuses of workers.– NNN-XINHUA
