You’re reading The Husk's Friday edition, our Weekender, a countdown/roundup of miscellanea from Micronesia, Guam, and Earth.

things related to the newly signed Declaration on U.S. Pacific Islands Partnership

This week the U.S. and Pacific islands signed on to this Declaration.

• Here are the nations that signed on: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and the United States of America

• The nations highlighted 11 priorities, as reported in the Pacific Island Times.

• Notably, the Solomon Islands wanted references about China removed from the declaration before signing, according to The Diplomat.

trafficking stories

• This week, Tia Belau’s banner Thursday story reported about 13 young Palauans recruited to work in the U.S. From the Tia Belau story:

  They were told that they would work for one year at $12 per hour and will have free housing for the first month. Deduction of $500 per month will be taken from their salaries but was not explained as for what.

• Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice this week also announced a couple from the FSM pleaded guilty to unlawful conduct with respect to documents in furtherance of trafficking or forced labor. According to the Justice Department:

  According to their plea agreements, the defendants convinced the two victims to leave their homes in Micronesia in December 2019 and travel to the United States by promising them they could work in the United States and send money back to their families. Once in the United States, the defendants confiscated the victims’ passports and obtained jobs for them at a meat processing plant in Ottumwa, Iowa. Each week, the defendants took the victims to cash their paychecks before seizing almost the entire amount and leaving the victims with only $20 each week. The defendants used various means to compel the victims’ labor and services, including confiscating the victims’ passports and social security cards, imposing debts on them, limiting and monitoring their communication with family, physically and socially isolating them and creating a system of total financial dependence on the defendants. In so doing, the defendants created a situation where the victims either had to continue complying with the defendants’ demands or risk being homeless and without a means of supporting themselves in a foreign country where they did not speak the language and had no means of returning home.

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  For context: Per the United Nations, human trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit.”

cryptocurrency story

• I have no sympathy for influencers big or small who use their platform to shill products to their followers for their personal gain, without disclosing they are paid to shill. It’s important that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kim Kardashian for promoting a cryptocurrency unlawfully.

Every week (that the Weekender comes out) we’ll leave you with a send-off song curated by my brother, Henry, whose musical tastes have left a lifelong impression on me and, now hopefully, you.

This week is sure to be a familiar one for some of you, just judging by the view count.

Have a great weekend!

-Jasmine