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Last Updated: Thursday, 27 March 2008, 23:21 GMT

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Indian men in US 'slave' protest

The Indian workers claim they have been kept in poor conditions
Almost 100 Indians who moved to the US for jobs have marched hundreds of miles to Washington DC in protest at being forced to work "like slaves".
The Indian ambassador said he would do all he could to protect their rights.

The men say recruiters tricked them into paying up to $20,000 each for a new life in the US, where they then had to work in exploitative conditions.

The Mississippi firm that employed them has denied they were mistreated. It claims the recruiters misled the men.

The employer, Signal International, says the men were paid wages above the local average and given good accommodation.

It accuses recruitment firm Global Resources of deceiving the Indians and has ended its contract. It has also demanded that the recruiters return the fees the men paid them.

But the men say they were then forced to live in primitive conditions with 24 men sharing a dormitory, for which they each paid $1,050 a month.

Almost 100 of them made an eight-day journey by foot and bus to Washington in an attempt to highlight what they say is the exploitation of foreign workers under the US temporary guest worker programme.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7316130.stm