Human Trafficking and Military Contractors: Lacking Accountability for Human Rights Violations

July 22nd, 2010

The Washington Post has recently reported on repeated violations of a policy instituted by President George Bush, that forbidded government contractors and employees from engaging in sex trafficking. The policy, which calls for prosecution and suspension or disqualification of companies whose workers engage in these acts, has been met with a complete lack of enforcement from US officials.

Reports of incidents of abuse included allegations that supervisors of an Army subcontractor in Iraq had sexually assaulted women. Other allegations focused on Blackwater security guards and U.S. soldiers who were accused of paying Iraqi girls for sex acts. Yet another report detailed brothel raids in Afghanistan that produced evidence of trafficking. In each of these cases, federal officials, despite the clear policies prohibiting such activity, took no action.

Abuses by private military and security companies are by no means a new phenomena. In the 1990s, DynCorp employees hired to represent the U.S. contingent in the U.N. Police Task Force in Bosnia were involved in sex-trafficking scandals.Robert Capps, Crime Without Punishment, Salon.com, June 27, 2002. In Africa, the private military firm Executive Outcomes was criticized for using cluster bombs and other military methods that were questionable under international humanitarian law. In Iraq, security contractors employed as interrogators by CACI International and Titan were involved in the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.Joel Brikley & James Glanz, Contract Workers Implicated in February Army Report on Prison Abuse Remain on the Job, N.Y. Times, May 4, 2004 at A6. Recently, Blackwater contractors came under scrutiny for the apparently unjustified killing of 17 Iraqi civilians while they were providing mobile convoy protection for USAID employees.James Glanz & Alissa J. Rubin, From Errand to Fatal Shot to Hail of Fire to 17 Deaths, N.Y. Times, Oct. 3, 2007 at A1.

The devastating reality of using private military and security companies is that many of their actions go unaccounted for. Our regulatory systems have simply failed to properly oversee the vast public functions that we now outsource. The legacies of these failures are not only felt by the innocent civilians that are exposed to the threat of harm, but also by the private military and security industry as a whole. The public perceptions of these actors becomes tinged with skepticism and doubt, and their effectiveness in assisting military personnel is thus compromised.

Current legislation in Congress, H.R.4567 Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (CEJA) of 2010, amends the federal criminal code to grant jurisdiction over and impose penalties on federal contractors and employees who commit certain crimes outside of the United States while employed by or accompanying any agency of the United States other than the Armed Forces. The legislation sets forth a list of crimes under federal law that are covered by this Act and directs the Attorney General to enforce the Act by:

(1) assign personnel and resources through Investigative Units for Contractor and Employee Oversight to investigate allegations of criminal offenses by federal contractors and employees; and
(2) report to Congress annually on the number of criminal cases received, investigated, and referred for prosecution.

Passing CEJA would be a strong step toward setting up the necessary system of oversight over these actors. Further, requiring annual reports to Congress on prosecutions would address failures in enforcement. However, the US government should involve itself in major international movements in crafting accountability and oversight over these actors.

Right Respect has, in the past, detailed efforts at the international and industry level for standardizing and regulating the policies of private military and security companies with respect to human rights. The value of such endeavors is the mechanisms that they create to monitor the activities of these companies and to hold them or contracting states accountable either through contract law or international law.

As the evidence continues to gather around the lack of regulation over private military and security companies, the US and major contracting governments should work with both the UN and industry efforts toward the creation of a holistic and robust system of oversight and monitoring. At that point, domestic, international and industry standards can be developed to reinforce accountability and ensure that human rights are protected from abuse.