President Obama issued an executive order Tuesday that is designed to strengthen prohibitions against human trafficking, including sex trafficking, by government contractors.
Joe Davidson
Joe Davidson writes the Federal Diary, a column about the federal workplace that celebrated its 80th birthday in November 2012. Davidson previously was an assistant city editor at The Washington Post and a Washington and foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered federal agencies and political campaigns.
“As the largest single purchaser of goods and services in the world, the United States Government bears a responsibility to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not contribute to trafficking in persons,” the order says. “By providing our Government workforce with additional tools and training to apply and enforce existing policy, and by providing additional clarity to Government contractors and subcontractors on the steps necessary to fully comply with that policy, this order will help to protect vulnerable individuals as contractors and subcontractors perform vital services and manufacture the goods procured by the United States.”
Among other things, the order prohibits contractors and subcontractors from “using misleading or fraudulent recruitment practices during the recruitment of employees” and prohibits the failure “to pay return transportation costs upon the end of employment” for workers recruited to work in a foreign country.
The order follows a congressional hearing and news reports about some government contractors participating in the sex trade, using indentured servants and exploiting workers.
Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project On Government Oversight, which has pushed for stronger trafficking prohibitions, said the order “will expand the scope of current anti-trafficking policies and regulations. The abuses covered under the president’s order are shockingly common throughout the world. Now, however, U.S. prime contractors and subcontractors who participate in human trafficking are on notice.”
Stan Soloway, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, which represents contractors, said his organization stands “with the administration in its efforts to ensure that American tax dollars are used as intended and do not flow to individuals or organizations that participate in the tragic practice of human trafficking. Fortunately, such cases are exceedingly rare. But reasonable and focused vigilance is nonetheless the responsible approach to ensure the eradication of any cases.”
70 years, and still going
Seventy years is a long time to do anything, especially working for Uncle Sam.
This week, Sarkis Tatigian was honored for doing just that.
He marked his seven decades with the government, all with the Navy as a sailor and as a civilian, at a ceremony Wednesday. The Navy says he is currently the longest-serving Department of Defense employee.
Can any fed anywhere beat that?
Tatigian, 89, joined the Navy in 1942 as a civilian radio inspector at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He became a sailor the next year, then returned to being a Navy civil servant in 1946. He now works at the Washington Navy Yard, where he is an associate director of small business.
After all these years, Tatigian said he still enjoys his work, “the variety, the diversification, the challenges that you’re faced with dealing with people internally and externally — that is, the business community.”
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