Celebrating Freedom: Justice Finally Achieved for Victims of Human Trafficking in American-Samoa Garment Factory Case

A Firsthand, Behind-the-Scenes Report on What Happened in American Samoa to 300 Women Enslaved by Kil Soo Lee and the Vietnamese Government, and the People Who Helped Bring Them Justice

By Malia Zimmerman, 7/3/2005 4:39:20 PM

As Americans everywhere celebrate their freedom and independence this Fourth of July, I have been reflecting on a national story I filed four years ago in February 2001 that helped bring freedom and justice to women from Vietnam then, and in 2005 -- women, who at the time knew nothing of American values, beliefs or laws, and certainly did not know about freedom.

In January 2001, I got calls from two people I?d never met asking me to go to American Samoa to help expose in the media the story of 300 young women who were enslaved by Korean garment factory owner, Kil Soo Lee.

I was a single mom of a 5-year-old boy, freelancing for local and national news media and launching Hawaii Reporter -- all of which kept me busy. The thought of traveling to a place I was unfamiliar under conditions that would probably be hostile, and trying to communicate with young women who did not speak any English, just didn?t seem practical. Besides, wasn?t there a journalist in American Samoa who could write the story? And what about the government in American Samoa -- or the U.S. federal government -- if the conditions were really that bad, wouldn?t agents from one of these government bodies step in to rescue them?

But the two people trying to convince me to help the women in captivity would not take "no" for an answer. They arranged a meeting one evening in a Hawaii Kai home with a stunning Vietnamese woman from Northern Vietnam who?d just been taken out of American Samoa through the help of a Baptist church in Hawaii.
Truong Thi Le Quyen -- later she called herself Quyen Truong -- was just 21 years old at the time, ye! t, as I would come to learn, she?d already experienced great hardship and tragedy. The most obvious physical affliction of the emotional, physical and mental agony was easy to see. Her eye, covered with a large white bandage, had been poked out with a stick by a guard after Kil Soo Lee had marked Quyen as a "troublemaker" in the factory because she dared to complain about the conditions and lack of food. She?d also been severely beaten in this same attack -- there were scars all across her back from the whipping she?d endured by a guard with a PVC pipe. She showed me pictures documenting the assault, which in an instant, changed her life forever in ways she?d never have expected -- the pictures were of her eye that she?d lost, and of her various parts of her body where the beating on her thin body took the greatest toll. The Baptist church had rescued her -- brought her to Hawaii after learning of the attack and imprisonment, and raised $50,000 to get her facial surgery and ! a glass eye.

Through a translator, Quyen told me how she?d lived in Northern Vietnam, learned about the job in the garment factory, and left behind her little sister and widowed mother in search of a better life and more money for her family. She told me how the journey had taken a terrible turn once she set foot on the soil in American Samoa.

As she spoke of her life so far, her story overwhelmed me, and the picture of her eye -- just her eye on a table at the hospital -- burned a strong impression of what it must have been like to be so young, face such great fear, and lose so much.

Quyen, and the strength and courage she?d shown in her life, was the inspiration for me from then on to make all the arrangements to go to American Samoa and to expose Kil Soo Lee and his slave camp. There were 300 more women enslaved in the garment factory in American Samoa, and at that point, every minute mattered. I was told by friends who were familiar with American Samoa that I could not make any mistakes, or tell anyone I was a reporter until absolutely necessary ethically, or I?d risk not only missing out on the story, but possibly the lives of the women in the garment factory. Two women from the factory, who like Quyen had tried to get help from the outside, had already disappeared and were f! eared to be dead.

Journey to American Samoa

There was not much information available about Kil Soo Lee or his garment factory, but I called everyone in the federal government I knew and had them call their sources to get a feel for the situation I?d face. I learned the federal government had been investigating Lee for two years, but so far nothing had been done except a few inspections of the factory and sporadic citations issued by the U.S. Labor Department for withholding payment to the young women working for him. National media attention and pressure from the press in Washington D.C. was the only way to spu! r the federal government into action, I was told by higher ups in the Nation?s Capitol. The Washington Times agreed to let me publish my report in its Washington D.C.-based daily newspaper.

Volunteers from the Baptist church asked if they could send along several crates of food with me as the women were not being fed adequately, or sometimes at all, and Keoni Wagner from Hawaiian Airlines generously made arrangements for me to bring the food on my plane at no charge. Unintentionally, the Baptist church provided a good cover -- I was warned that the people in American Samoa, in particular the government, highly resented outside media and would immediately shut down any hope I had of getting information once I landed on the island. In addition, the lieutenant governor at the time, Togiola Tulafono, who is now the governor, had a vested interest in the factory as his wife was on the board of directors, making discretion all the more important on my part.

The only way I would be accepted, I was told, was if I was thought to be a church worker or a federal agent -- rarely did Caucasians travel to American Samoa otherwise. And my sources were right -- the first question on the plane to American Samoa by residents returning home was, were Michelle Rowland, my Vietnamese translator, and I missionaries or federal agents? We didn?t have to say anything about our intentions -- rather Rowland just pointed to the food we had and they were satisfied, assuming we were missionaries -- information passed li! ke lightening around to the rest of the people on the plane.

Getting on the plane was an unexpected challenge. Immigration and customs in American Samoa required I have a passport, but somehow in the race to leave home for the airport, my passport fell out of my bag -- something I did not realize until I was attempting to board the plane. Even though this was pre-9-11, the airlines agent would not let me on the plane, saying if she did, customs might turn me away as soon as I landed in PagoPago. I ran back to the car and searched everywhere for the passport, with no luck, but somehow when I returned, another agent let me board with just my drivers license.

The entire plane ride to American Samoa I was in a panic -- what if I arrived and they turned me away because I didn?t have my passport? What would happen to the women in the factory, what about the food I was bringing and would my translator be stuck there without me? I finally put my hope in fate and faith that the plane to American Samoa would not be in vain, that I would receive the help I needed from the people I was supposed to, so I could expose the wrongdoing in the garment factory.

When we landed in Pago Pago, it was night and the airport was packed. Rowland went ahead of me and got her passport stamped without a problem. Fortunately, the custom?s agent was so taken with her that he barely glanced at me, just stamping my paperwork without making a fuss about my missing passport.

But getting away from Customs wasn?t going to be that easy -- another customs agent was busy opening every crate of food we?d brought, even unwrapping the packages of Saimin, supposedly to make sure there were no illegal drugs. This American Samoa customs agent began to call over other agents, accusing me of bringing the food in illegally, and she threatened to confiscate the food. She was just about to make a huge scene when the an absolutely radiant sophisticated woman with a big smile whisked into the airport and started to speak to the customs? agents -- actually she began scolding them. The half-French, half-Samoan former fashion model, who was well known in the community as an author and owner ! of a small hotel, was Chande Tutu-Drabble.
She was to be our host during the weeklong trip and she began immediately earning the money we?d pay her. She rescued the crates of food -- and helped us wheel out the boxes to members of the Baptist church waiting just outside, and saved us from an unknown fate -- possibly hours more of interrogation or even worse -- jail and deportation before my research on the island was complete.

The small hotel she owned, the Taalolo Lodge & Golf Resort, was exquisite. We stayed in one of the few air-conditioned rooms on the entire island and in a much nicer place than the one hotel -- the Rainmaker -- where all of the government agents (and rats, I was told) stayed. And the air-conditioning was welcomed -- it was winter in Hawaii, but the peak of summer in American Samoa and I?d never been hotter. The humidity was overpowering. Just standing still, in the lightest weight Polynesian dress I had, made me drip with sweat. When thund! erstorms approached, which they often did with little warning before sending a torrential downpour, steam rose from the ground and thickened the air further, making it hard to breathe.

Tutu-Drabble, who?d been introduced via email to me by Angie Williams -- a former Hawaii resident who?d worked at the Pacific center at the East-West Center -- was skeptical of the garment factory situation. She felt sorry for the girls there, but also did not believe at the time that they were in any life-threatening danger. Like many other residents of American Samoa, Tutu-Drabble believed w! hat the local newspaper reported and what local government officials said, which was the Vietnamese were troublemakers and should not have been allowed in American Samoa to begin with. The governor at the time was quoted in the local newspaper calling the Vietnamese women "Tiki Tiki girls," calling their accusations "bull" and blaming them for a variety of alleged assorted dirty deeds. Without a media to counter what the government said and give more than one side of the story, its residents were becoming more and more hostile toward the Vietnamese women.

Many residents also resented Quyen -- they saw her as a troublemaker who?d brought the attack by the American Samoan guard on herself.

Documenting the ?Hell? in Which the Vietnamese Women Lived

It was in this far away, and often forgotten corner of America, that Lee was allowed in 1998 to incorporate with the help of the lieutenant governor of American Samoa, a garment factory called Daewoosa Samoa, Ltd.

Lee cut a deal with two Vietnamese quasi-government agencies, International Manpower Supply and Tourism Company 12, to export around 300 workers from Vietnam -- the majority of whom were young girls, inexperienced in everything except sewing. Chinese workers also were imported into the mix, though in the minority, and little is known about their contract, promises made to them or their fate.

A great deal about the experience of Vietnamese workers came to light when I interviewed them with the help of my translator, at their dorms in Daewoosa.

The workers had paid around $5,000 to their government to secure a three-year contract to sew designer clothes for $408 per month. The workers say a promotional video shown to them by the quasi-government agencies highlighted vast amenities like spacious living quarters with a swimming pool, nutritious meals served three times a day and substantial wages. They believed the video.
They were raised to believe governments don?t lie, they said.

The Vietnamese workers, who passed a sewing test and a health-fitness test, were taken by plane to PagoPago to sew clothes labeled "Made in America" for JC Penney, Sears and Target, amongst others. More than 30 Vietnamese workers I interviewed in American Samoa say they were shocked when they arrived by the Daewoosa facilities -- a grim, grayed barbed-wire compound surrounded by massive Samoan guards with sticks who did not speak their language.

The concentration-like quarters crammed 36 people into a poorly ventilated, humid hallway lined by tiny bunk beds with half-inch mattresses. Bath facilities offered no privacy and broken toilets and the swimming pool was not filled with water, but garbage and rancid putrid green slime.

It wasn?t just the poor living conditions that got to the workers psyche. They were fed a rice and cabbage gruel day after day. They were slapped and pinched by guards for minor offenses such as missing a curfew or working too slowly.
Female workers were subject to the sexual and other whims of Lee, who on occasion, forced them to clip and manicure his toenails, allow him to watch them shower, and lay beside them on their bunks.

Some of them became pregnant and were forced to leave Daewoosa with no place else to go (Rowland and I tracked down these women in convents and at local churches, where we spent many hours interviewing them).

To add to their nearly broken spirit, the workers who were forced to remain in the camp often weren?t paid sometimes for months the $408 promised, despite the fact that the National Labor Committee reports Daewoosa brought in sales of $8 million in 1999. When they were paid, Lee took back $150 to $200 for room and board, a condition not in their contract.

There would be no escape from the new life of terror. Once in the Daewoosa compound, Lee seized their passports and turned them over to the American Samoa government.

Workers? complaints to the Vietnamese government representatives only made matters worse. The agents told the workers in a letter that they?d better not make trouble or they would risk being deported back to Vietnam, labeled as political troublemakers.

Their own government sold them to the devil, they said.

No Americans on a White Horse Came to the Rescue ? At Least Not At First

The United States government knew all along of the abuse and harassment at Daewoosa, as did the local government of American Samoa.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officials conducted at least three investigations in 1999, 2000 and 2001, citing numerous violations for "substandard housing and diet; sanitation; electrical, fall, fire and machine-guard hazards; workplace violence; overcrowding; failing to control rodent and insect infestation; and substandard food" and assessing $17,000 in penalties. The internal report says investigators documented repeat violations that were never corrected and "numerous incidents that indicate a trend of institutionalized workplace violence and corporal punishment by the owner."

May 25, 2001, OSHA issued a statement about the factory citing 28 alleged violations and another fine of $78,500. Earlier agents had ordered Daewoosa to pay $349,615 in back wages and $237,140 in penalties.

The labor department paid the money to workers, but workers said Lee's assistant drove them to the bank and then seized the cash. Those who refused to give up the money to Lee were deported back to North Vietnam, where they had incurred huge debts because of the loans they took out to go to American Samoa.

With no way to pay the debts off, they felt they brought shame to themselves and their families -- a fate to most worse than they faced as slaves in American Samoa.

While these federal reports and others over a 2-year period were not enough to bring immediate action by the U.S. federal government, the American Samoan government acted even more deplorably, giving Lee special treatment, and in turn profited from the factory.

Special privileges were bestowed on Daewoosa from the beginning of its incorporation -- the bond usually required from businesses operating in American Samoa was waived and Daewoosa got special tax exemptions -- possibly because of its connection to Lt. Gov. Tulafono who was hired to incorporate Daewoosa. The lieutenant governor?s wife, Mary, served for nearly two years on the board of directors. Then Gov. Tauese Sunia was openly hostile to the Vietnamese workers, maintaining over the last two years that the workers complaints are "bull."

They could not seek protection from the police, 12 female Daewoosa employees interviewed say, because "the police were friends of Mr. Lee and bought clothes from him for cheap," including $15 jackets sold to them for $5. During disputes, workers report police sided against them, even if they had been beaten or hospitalized. None of these government officials chose to respond to questions.

Risking Their Life for Freedom, Justice, Doesn?t End Well for Two Young Victims

Ngyen Thi Nga and Dung Thi Kim Vu sought legal help from attorneys Virginia Sudbury and Christa Tzu-hsiu Lin, who took on in 2001 pro-bono what they believed was a simple wage claim case against Daewoosa. It was these Vietnamese workers? testimony and ability to speak English that led Lin and Sudbury to realize there were injustices at the factory that went beyond wage concerns.
That discovery sparked a class-action lawsuit against both Daewoosa and the Vietnamese government filed on behalf of more than 250 factory workers.

There were tense moments where the two Vietnamese whistleblowers confided in co-workers and on video that they feared for their safety. Weeks later, both whistleblowers drowned in rough seas off Pago Pago. Their bodies were never found.

As new witnesses stepped forward to fill the void, they say Lee became more angry and volatile, rapidly retaliating against workers who filed claims against him. He deported, with the cooperation of the Vietnamese and Samoan governments, nine primary witnesses and demanded the arrest of four others.

Tension reached an all time high when Samoan guards on Nov. 28, 2000, attacked the Vietnamese workers for not working fast enough. Though it was never proved in the civil trial that Lee ordered the beatings, witnesses reported hearing Lee announce, "If someone dies, I will be responsible." No one died, but that was when Quyen was severely injured in the riot as she was attacked with a club, stabbed in the eye and blinded. A month later on New Year's Eve, Lee ordered the police to arrest attorney Lin who was visiting her clients in the Daewoosa compound.

Associate Justice of the High Court of American Samoa Lyle Richmond, presided over the 5-week civil trial in February and March -- a part of a trial I was able to witness. He made no ruling for several months on the case, but eventually sided with the plaintiffs, ordering Lee to pay the back wages to the women. The plaintiffs requested $4 million be paid in back wages and another $6 million in damages, but Lee either hid his assets or really did not have any because he said he would not and could not pay them. The factory closed under the court-appointed receivership of Jim Fones with virtually no money in its bank account.

"The most frustrating part was going to court day after day with the hope we could get money for our clients and see Mr. Lee go to jail, and then being disappointed," Sudbury said during an interview at the time. "My clients wanted to see their moms, dads, sisters and brothers, and they would just break down and cry when told them there was no money and nothing I could do to help them."

What Comes Around, Goes Around

After media reports on the conditions at Daewoosa surfaced in the national media, including my report in the Washington Times, and a story in the New York Times, help for the trafficking victims soon followed.

Lee was arrested by federal agents and deported from American Samoa to Hawaii on March 23, 2001, and was held behind bars without the chance for bond.

Lee?s indictment said he willfully held people in involuntary servitude from Feb. 9, 1999, to December 2000, and forced them to work without pay under threats of serious harm and physical restraint.

First Assistant Federal Defender Alexander Silvert has an answer for each accusation against his client -- he was framed by federal agents, he was illegally kidnapped by American federal agents with no jurisdiction in the area, the American government and Vietnamese women were conspiring against Lee.
Silvert said the media greatly exaggerated claims against Lee.

"My client is only guilty of not paying the workers in a timely manner," Silvert said at the time. "There was nothing wrong with the living conditions or the food or the way workers were treated when the factory was open."

It?s all about motivation, Silvert claimed. The Vietnamese who remain in the United States are exaggerating their experiences in order to qualify for protection under a T-visa, he says.

"My client?s life is on the line. He could get a 10-year sentence and he is 50 years old. That is like a death sentence for him," Silvert says.

Silvert filed several motions, including one requesting a change of venue for the trial from Hawaii to American Samoa, but in February 2003 after a 4-month trial, Lee lost his case altogether and was found guilty of 14 counts, including conspiracy, involuntary servitude, extortion and money laundering.

Lee dropped Silvert as an attorney, hiring Hawaii Civil Rights Attorney Earle Partington to appeal the case.

But Lee lost that case too -- he could have gotten a life sentence, but the 52-year-old was sentenced to 40 years in prison last week.

At the conclusion of his trial, Lee said he was wrongly convicted on "lies and fabricated evidence."

U.S. District Judge Susan Mollway, disagreed, saying Lee showed "greed, arrogance and contempt for American law." She maintained the 40 years was appropriate given the physical, psychological and financial harm the workers endured at Daewoosa and will continue to suffer from throughout their lives.

Federal prosecutors, happy with the outcome of the trial, called the Daewoosa case the biggest "modern-day slavery" case in U.S. history.

The 65 Samoan workers at Daewoosa, many guards, were not paid for the last several weeks of work, had the federal government file a grievance on their behalf.

The Vietnamese workers all left American Samoa, with about 100 returning to Vietnam and 200 moving to the United States to make new lives for themselves.
The average weight of the workers when they left American Samoa was 76 pounds
-- many of them lost between 20 to 25 pounds from the time they arrived from Vietnam.

U.S. Congress passed legislation -- Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 -- to let them stay in American under a "T" Visa.

Civil Rights Attorneys Sudbury and Lin recovered from the extensive and emotional civil trial. Sudbury, burned out on legalese, moved to Salt Lake City in June 2002, with her husband Robert, to pursue a new profession. Lin, tired of the extreme prejudice against Asians that she says she encountered in American Samo! a, left to pursue employment opportunities in the West Coast.

And as to Quyen, who turned 26 years old the day Lee was sentenced to 40 years in prison, says there was a happy ending for her too. Despite the stress of testifying in two trials against Lee, she found love, luck and inspiration in America. Living in Hawaii, Quyen met and married her future husband and now has a 4-month old son. Though happy in her life now, she will never forget what happened to her or the others at Daewoosa.

But the women of Daewoosa and the people who helped bring justice may have paved the way for others in a similar predicament. All sides involved in the case agree what happened at Daewoosa and afterward has international implications in many areas and will likely help future victims of slave camps, especially any established in American territory.

Despite what they endured, the 200 Vietnamese women who chose to remain in the United States now know about freedom, independence and the value of America's constitution -- all of which they can celebrate with Americans this Fourth of July, just one week after Lee was sentenced in federal court.

Meanwhile, Kil Soo Lee has learned a bit about American justice and will spend this Independence Day and the next 39 independence days, behind bars.