USALI affiliated scholar Aaron Halegua was quoted in a recent Axios article about the conditions of Chinese laborers working on Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects.
USALI Affiliate News: Aaron Halegua quoted by Sixth Tone on sexual harassment in China
Institute affiliated scholar Aaron Halegua was quoted in a recent Sixth Tone article about sexual harassment in China.
USALI Affiliate News: Aaron Halegua’s research cited in CECC annual human rights report
Institute affiliated scholar Aaron Halegua’s research report has been cited in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s most recent report on human rights in China.
USALI Affiliate News: Aaron Halegua Testified Before Congressional-Executive Commission
Institute affiliated scholar Aaron Halegua testified on March 1, 2022 before the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China at a hearing on The Future of Women in China: #MeToo, Censorship, and Gender Inequality.
USALI Affiliate News: Aaron Halegua interviewed about Peng Shuai case
ABC Australia interviewed USALI affiliated scholar Aaron Halegua about his report on workplace gender-based violence in China and its relation to Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai
USALI Affiliate News: Aaron Halegua named litigator of the year
The Human Trafficking Legal Center has named USALI affiliated scholar Aaron Halegua the On My Side 2021 Litigator of the Year for his “enormously impactful civil trafficking case on behalf of Chinese construction workers trafficked to Saipan to build casinos.” Mr. Halegua assisted more than 2,400 Chinese construction workers trafficked to Saipan to recover $14 million in back pay through the U.S. Department of Labor, and in May 2021 obtained a $5.9 million judgment from the U.S. district court in Saipan for the forced labor claims of seven of those workers. The Center said: “The case is the largest construction worker civil trafficking case ever seen in the federal courts. Aaron is a skilled and courageous leader in the anti-trafficking civil litigation field.” Register here to attend the Sept. 22 award ceremony.
USALI in the news: China Daily cites Halegua’s GBVH report
Are countries fulfilling the promise of the Violence and Harassment Convention?
WSJ: In China, a #MeToo Case Gets Its Day in Court
On December 2, 2020, the Wall Street Journal published a story about a court hearing in a sexual harassment case in Beijing. This article included a quote from Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua. Halegua began researching this sexual harassment and discrimination as part of a USALI project, which happened to take place just after the #MeToo movement erupted in the US.
Labour Protections for Overseas Chinese Workers: Legal Framework and Judicial Practice
ChinaFile: How Will China Shape Global Governance?
Made in China: From Africa to Saipan: What Happens When Chinese Construction Firms ‘Go Global’?
For the past several years, I have been deeply engaged with a case involving the exploitation of thousands of Chinese workers by Chinese construction firms on the island of Saipan—part of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). This essay explores the extent to which Professor Ching Kwan Lee’s findings and conclusions about overseas Chinese construction firms, drawn from her fieldwork in Zambia (Lee 2017), are consistent with the events that transpired in Saipan. More specifically, the Saipan and Zambia cases are used to examine three issues: labour conditions at Chinese construction firms and the role that state- or private-ownership plays; the plight of Chinese migrant workers on these overseas projects; and, what avenues may be available for contesting such abuses.
Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua speaks at US Embassy in Beijing
Washington Post Op-Ed by Aaron Halegua & Jerome A. Cohen "The Forgotten Victims of China's Belt & Road Initiative"
USALI Faculty Director Jerome A. Cohen and Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post discussing the One Belt - One Road Initiative and the Chinese workers dispatched overseas to help make this building infrastructure through deepening economic ties a reality. Read an excerpt below of the article, and read the entire article here.
Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua's Ongoing Legal Work in Saipan
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — Seven Chinese men allege in a lawsuit that they were victims of a forced labor scheme while constructing a Saipan casino.
The casino and its contractors violated U.S. trafficking laws by exploiting the workers, the lawsuit said. Saipan is part of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Financial Times: China’s globetrotting labourers face dangers and debt
Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua quoted and referenced in recent Financial Times article. …Desperate for cash because he had not been paid for two months and fearing he could be deported because he lacked official papers, Jiang Wei and two colleagues turned up at the Chinese consulate in the Zambian capital of Lusaka in search of help.