In the Spring 2006 issue of Ms. Magazine, author Rebecca Clarren writes powerfully about the relationship between sweatshops and prostitution in the Northern Mariana Islands. According to Ms., thousands of women from Asia pay “recruiters” up to $7,000 for a job in a Marianas factory. (The Marianas, a U.S. Territory, are not subject to the U.S.’s minimum wage laws and garment workers are paid very little.) Unable to repay their “recruiters” from their factory wages, many women then turn to prostitution and the Marianas’ burgeoning sex-“tourism” industry. Clarren’s full article is available here.
-Bridget Crawford
