Africans to work in Iraq as cheap labor

[ZinURu]

Africans recruited to work in Iraq as cheap labor

AM - Monday, 21 February , 2005 08:24:00
Reporter: Zoe Daniel

TONY EASTLEY: As some firms pay westerners thousands of dollars a week to work in Iraq, there are people willing to go there for much, much, less.

A multinational recruitment company has set up in West Africa, recruiting Africans to work for as little $40 US a week working at US bases. The company is centred in Liberia, but is also recruiting staff from Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone.

Africa Correspondent Zoe Daniel reports from Sierra Leone's capital Freetown.

ZOE DANIEL: Eighteen-year-old Benedith Marrah is desperate to work in Iraq, but he's under the required age of 25 and he can't get the Sierra Leone labour office to accept his application.

BENEDITH MARRAH: Me going to Iraq (inaudible) means for me to have an international employed because the situation is just awful here.

(Sound of argument)

ZOE DANIEL: Benedith is one of many waiting here at the labour department on a steamy afternoon. The process is sanctioned by the country's Government, and Herbert Smith from the Department of Labour has been conducting the interviews.

HERBERT SMITH: They're going to give them $150 on a monthly basis, and $40 as an allowance, and they will be providing accommodation, food, medical services for them.

ZOE DANIEL: Recruitment company ESS Support Services Worldwide plans to take on 750 workers from Sierra Leone. They'll be employed as cleaners and kitchen hands on military bases.

The salary is tiny compared to rates of between $5,000 and $30,000 a month for Westerners working in Iraq. But here people are desperate, and the deal sounds good to the likes of Sulaiman Koroma. He will leave his pregnant partner in Freetown if he gets the job.

SULAIMAN KOROMA: I don't have anything to do, so instead of sitting down with hardly anything to do, I consider myself to be… not to be useless because sitting down without anything to do, you are useless.

ZOE DANIEL: Recent government figures show that 70 per cent of Sierra Leonians live in poverty. Some figures put youth unemployment as high as 95 per cent. Even the Department of Labour's Herbert Smith admits that makes Sierra Leone an easy place to recruit cheap labour for dangerous jobs.

HERBERT SMITH: Personally I believe that Sierra Leone is definitely a soft spot for that kind of thing.

ZOE DANIEL: But the candidates reject suggestions they're being exploited.

HASSAN CONTEH: I volunteer myself to go. It's not something forceful, it's not even something like slavery like other people because I have some of my friends that were chatting with me, they told me something like civil rights labour, I say no, it's not slavery, I say because I volunteer myself.

ZOE DANIEL: Staff from the recruitment company have left Sierra Leone and were unavailable for comment. However their notes to candidates say that "Iraq is a dangerous place and that they'll do everything possible to prevent any type of accident."

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1307183.htm

[G.O.D.F.A.T.H.A.]

Another one bites the dust.