Plight of contractor raped in Iraq spurs push in Congress

[unhappycamper]

Plight of contractor raped in Iraq spurs push in Congress
By Maria Recio | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, December 20, 2009

WASHINGTON — Four years ago, Jamie Leigh Jones, a 20-year old Texas contract employee working in Iraq, was drugged, stripped, beaten and gang-raped by her co-workers on her fourth day in country. She finally managed to get a phone call out from the shipping container where she was being detained — by her employer, KBR, then a Halliburton company.

That call to her father led to a call to her congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and her rescue after Poe had the State Department locate her. But Jones' attempts at justice — and restitution — were blocked by a little-noticed compulsory arbitration clause in the contracts of private employees working for federal government contractors.

Now, a move by Congress last week, jump-started by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., would protect contract employees by ensuring they have legal recourse.

The provision is in the defense appropriations bill that the Senate approved Saturday after the House passed it Wednesday. It only needs the president's signature to become law.

"This amendment makes all the hard times that I have gone through, when going public with such a personal tragedy, worth every tear shed from telling and retelling my horrific experience," Jones said after the Senate first acted on the bill in October. Jones most recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in October: "I know this amendment will save so many in the future."


Rest of article at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/80995.html

[TexasObserver]

1. Recommend

This young woman's ordeal has been well covered in Houston media.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. Appropriate action at last, hopefully.

[Love Bug]

3. Excellent!

Employers should not be allowed to force employees to sign away their Constitutional rights.

[SharonAnn]

6. Right. What happened to her was a criminal act. She can't be told she has no recourse.

[lamp_shade]

4. Thanks for posting. I had forgotten about this.

[Berry Cool]

5. Let us hope this becomes law soon

and thank you, Senator Franken. Doggone it, people do not just like you, but LOVE you for this.