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Cepeda to discuss magazine allegations with members
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Posted on Apr 28 2006
Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Charles V. Cepeda said it is worth looking at the issues or allegations reported by a feminist magazine relating to the CNMI’s labor and human rights issues.
“I think we need to attend to reports, positive or negative, that affect our domestic affairs,” said Cepeda.
Ms. Magazine’s recent cover story—”Sex, Greed and Forced Abortions in ‘Paradise,'”—talks about alleged labor abuses, including maltreatment by employers of their employees, and neglect by the local government.
It alleged that there are abortion clinics in the CNMI where certain foreign workers are forced to go.
Cepeda said this particular allegation would be far from the truth since nonresident workers actually prefer to give birth in the CNMI so that their children will be U.S. citizens.
“What I know is that they actually want to give birth here,” he said.
Nevertheless, he said that he would initiate discussions with chamber members regarding the article’s allegations.
“I personally want to check it out,” he said.
Local officials have earlier cried foul over the publication of the article.
Washington Rep. Pedro A. Tenorio, during his annual speech before the Legislature last week, assailed the article as being grossly unfair and inaccurate.
He said such press coverage is devastating, “negating almost all of the honest efforts that the local government has done to ensure fair treatment of guest workers.”
Regardless, Tenorio said it should prompt the Commonwealth to prove the magazine wrong and to correct the allegations should they be found true.
He urged elected officials, employers and local residents to read the article.
“In the end, we must collectively do something positive to demonstrate our utmost concerns about all these damaging allegations and correct them if they are indeed true,” he said.
He said the CNMI government should continue to maintain and improve on labor and immigration reforms, enact fair and compassionate labor laws, and ensure that worker abuses are reported and punished.
