Marianas Islands Garment Worker, "Mr. DeLay traveled there and turned a blind eye to our misery.”

The Daily News

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says he found no victims of sweatshops, sex slavery or forced abortions on the Pacific island of Saipan in the mid-1990s. But Carmencita Abad says that’s because DeLay did not want to see them.

“My answer is, Mr. DeLay, I am that person,” Abad said in a telephone interview. “I am an example of an individual who can prove that the accounts of sweatshop labor and forced prostitution are not just allegations but true accounts of working conditions in the Marianas Islands when Mr. DeLay traveled there and turned a blind eye to our misery.”

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The press conference was sponsored by the Campaign for a Clean Congress, a national organization, the Harris County AFL-CIO and Houston Interfaith Worker Justice. It was called, in part, to counter claims DeLay made last month when he told The Daily News that there were no human rights violations taking place on Saipan in the 1990s.

As he entered Tuesday’s luncheon, DeLay was again asked about the allegations. “The workers there were very well treated,” he said. “There may have existed some problems in certain instances, but not when I was there.”

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In the 1990s, Abramoff, a close associate of DeLay’s, was paid millions by the garment industry and the indebted Saipan government to keep the federal government from forcing the territory to adopt the federal minimum wage or U.S. immigration laws. DeLay carried that fight to Capitol Hill — despite the fact that Republican Sen. Frank Murkowski was pushing reform legislation.