Forced labor report on Dominican sugarcane

A report released Tuesday by the nonprofit Corporate Accountability Lab found that forced labor persists on massive sugarcane plantations in the Dominican Republic, operated by Central Romana Corporation, the country's largest employer and landowner. The report, based on more than three years of investigation, documents workers being isolated, underpaid, and forced to live in cramped housing lacking water and electricity. Many workers are Haitian migrants or their descendants who lack citizenship. The report notes that Central Romana's owners have ties to U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The U.S. had imposed an import ban on the company's sugar in 2022, but the ban was reversed last year under the Trump administration. Corporate Accountability Lab called on the U.S. government to reinstate the ban and on the Dominican government to regularize workers' immigration status and enforce labor laws. Central Romana denied the allegations, calling the report 'riddled with inaccuracies and untruths.'