Watchdog calls for US import ban as forced labor persists in Dominican sugarcane fields

A human rights group has reported that forced labor continues to occur on large sugarcane plantations in the Dominican Republic, which supplies sugar and other goods to the United States, its most significant market. The Corporate Accountability Lab spent over three years investigating working conditions at plantations owned by Central Romana Corporation, Ltd., the largest employer and landowner in the country.

The company's owners have connections to former U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Central Romana Corporation faced an import ban from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2022 due to accusations of isolating workers, withholding wages, creating abusive living and working conditions, and demanding excessive overtime. However, the ban was lifted under the Trump administration in 2023.

One of the company's owners, Fanjul Corp., which owns Florida Crystals, has close ties to both Trump and the Dominican government, according to the report. The human rights organization has urged the U.S. government to reinstate the ban, emphasizing that as long as the company and other well-connected entities continue to benefit from market access while ignoring labor rights abuses, U.S. policy will remain complicit in the very abuses it claims to condemn.

Local civil society groups estimate that between 8,000 and 9,000 workers toil in the sugarcane fields of Central Romana Corporation, which spans over 173,700 acres.