WillyT

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Mon Dec-24-07 03:18 PM
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Gang Rape Green Zone? - UK Guardian

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In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, was working in Iraq for military contractor, KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) when she says she was drugged and gang-raped by several co-workers. For the last two years, she's been asking the US government to hold the perpetrators accountable, but the men who raped her may never be brought to justice because Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq aren't subject to US or Iraqi laws.

MoveOn, a democracy-in-action pressure group is organising a petition calling on Congress to investigate Jamie's case, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law so this can't happen again. Sadly, the petition can only be signed by American voters.

If you take a look at what happened to Jamie Leigh Jones and at least 11 other women now claiming they have been raped and sexually assaulted while working in Baghdad's Green Zone, then it's difficult to avoid the notion that if these contractors behave in such a sexually barbaric fashion to their working colleagues, what have they been inflicting on the female Iraqi population - apart from apparently randomly beating and shooting their men?

On December 19, Jamie Leigh testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Her testimony gives yet further proof that corporate America is a law unto itself, endorsing behaviour that belongs to the middle ages.

Jamie Leigh says she was given a drink by a fellow worker. She took two sips and remembers nothing else. The next morning she woke, feeling "extremely sore". She had severe bruising and was bleeding from her vagina. One of her co-workers told her he had had unprotected sex with her. She went to the KBR clinic. The doctor took swabs, scrapings from under her fingernails, kept her underwear and examined her internally. The doctor told Jamie she had been raped anally and vaginally and had extensive damage. Jamie Leigh says she was then taken by KBR security and locked in a container without food and water or medical treatment for 24 hours - effectively a kidnapping. She was given two choices - stay and get over it. Or go back to Houston and get fired.

Eventually, a guard relented and gave her a phone. She contacted her father in Houston and that led to her rescue by agents from the US embassy in Baghdad

In her testimony, Jamie Leigh says that two years on she has had to have reconstructive surgery and continues to receive counselling three times a week. She has set up a foundation to help other victims of rape and sexual harassment.

She has now filed a cvil lawsuit against KBR and Halliburton - and this is where the ugly face of corporate America shows itself again. Jamie Leigh signed an employment contract that includes a mandatory arbitration clause stating if there is a "dispute" arising out of employment that dispute doesn't go before a judge and jury - it goes before an arbitrator. In KBR's view, alleged gang rape is a "dispute", so it wants secret arbitration. Is this not the rule of the feudal lord?

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both called for a congressional investigation. The rape evidence has since disappeared. Jones says the first question of the KBR psychiatrist appointed to help her was: "Are you going to sue Halliburton?"

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Link: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/yvonne_roberts/2007/12/gang_bang_green_zone.html

MoveOn Petition: http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/

Jones's Testimony: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/71165/

Jones's Foundation: http://www.jamiesfoundation.org/

Gang Rape Green Zone? - UK Guardian

IS