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\u2019s labor and human rights issues. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think we need to attend to reports, positive or negative, that affect our domestic affairs,\u201d said Cepeda.<\/p>\n
Ms. Magazine\u2019s recent cover story\u2014”Sex, Greed and Forced Abortions in ‘Paradise,'”\u2014talks about alleged labor abuses, including maltreatment by employers of their employees, and neglect by the local government. <\/p>\n
It alleged that there are abortion clinics in the CNMI where certain foreign workers are forced to go.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I know is that they actually want to give birth here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, he said that he would initiate discussions with chamber members regarding the article\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI personally want to check it out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Local officials have earlier cried foul over the publication of the article.<\/p>\n
Washington Rep. Pedro A. Tenorio, during his annual speech before the Legislature last week, assailed the article as being grossly unfair and inaccurate. <\/p>\n
He said such press coverage is devastating, \u201cnegating almost all of the honest efforts that the local government has done to ensure fair treatment of guest workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless, Tenorio said it should prompt the Commonwealth to prove the magazine wrong and to correct the allegations should they be found true.<\/p>\n
He urged elected officials, employers and local residents to read the article.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s labor and human rights issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}