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Iraq's illegal employment agencies

Unregistered recruitment agencies in Iraq bring Asian laborers to work long hours and for wages lower than what Iraqis demand.
TO GO WITH STORY BY ARTHUR MACMILLAN
A Bangladeshi worker cleans a table at a Baghdad restaurant on April 04, 2009.  Bangladeshis seeking to escape poverty back home have high hopes Baghdad will offer hard cash and prospects for a better life.
AFP PHOTO / ALI YUSSEF (Photo credit should read ALI YUSSEF/AFP/Getty Images)
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BAGHDAD — Zaher Moussa, a producer at the Iraqi Beladi TV channel in Baghdad, has tried to contact employment agencies placing Asian workers in Iraq to interview them about the way they bring foreign labor into the country. He got the agencies’ phone numbers from a website for foreign labor employment and social networking sites, but they refused to talk to him.

“Most of the agencies are not registered with the Iraqi government," Moussa told Al-Monitor. "They bring foreign workers into the country illegally.”

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