"Saipan is a modern, well developed island with all the amenities of a tropical resort area," boasts a webpage maintained by the island's Chamber of Commerce and Visitor's Authority. Such is the story of economic development. As the resorts rise, so too do garment factories, and the manufacturing and construction industries are booming as is immigration which fulfills their needs. Over fifty percent of Saipan's population is foreign workers. It is the centuries-old story of immigration. They come seeking a better life, mainly from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other poor or war torn regions of Asia.
To spur economic development, the Commonwealth is exempt from United States immigration and minimum wage laws. The CNMI controls its own immigration which has spawned an industry of its own in the countries from which workers come - recruitment agencies that traffic human labor across the Pacific to employers in Saipan. The going rate for employment in Saipan is $2000 -$7000.
It's a common scam. Employers provide barracks - sometimes livable, sometimes not - and food - sometimes healthy, sometimes not - for which a deduction is taken from the worker's paycheck. Another deduction is remitted to the employment agency in the worker's native country to pay off the placement fee.
Ajamaed Kabeer and Taren Gaser came from Sri Lanka to work on Saipan. Their recruitment agency promised them and their fellow workers good jobs and their own rooms in barracks maintained by their employer on Saipan, they told a documentary maker from Micronesian Seminar, a not-for-profit organization which raises awareness of North Pacific cultural and social issues. Instead, they said, twelve sleep across a single sheet of plywood in a barracks with no running water. Fifty dollars is deducted from each's $250 biweekly paycheck for the accommodations and another $150 is deducted for the placement fee.
The money that Kabeer, Gaser, and their fellow employees do earn, they never see. It accumulates in uncashed paychecks because their employer holds their passports for "safekeeping," another common tactic that leaves foreign workers completely dependent upon their employers. In a foreign land without proof of identity, without money, and without transportation, foreign laborers become prisoners to their barracks and to their employers' wishes.
Mark Zachares, Special Assistant Attorney General of the CNMI Department of Labor and Immigration offered his assessment of the situation to the documentary maker from Micronesian Seminar, "The vast majority of the people that are coming here, paying $5000 to come to work, as they sometimes claim, are in some ways willing victims. They are taking a gamble."
