Subcontracted labor migrants became prime kidnapping targets in the Iraq war.

Evidence

As war raged in Iraq in the summer of 2004, the headlines flashed the latest deadly tactic to emerge out of the conflict: Diplomats, politicians, aid workers, contract workers, and labor migrants had become targets of abduction and kidnapping. For the last groups—contract workers and labor migrants—this proved particularly harrowing. Drawn from the transnational working classes of India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and attracted by wages that provide temporary financial relief in their home countries, these subcontracted workers found themselves at the center of a strategic battle between occupiers and occupied in a web of violence wrought by a war led by the United States. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 16

Categorization

• QUESTION: The wages that attract these workers—what exactly are they paid, and how quickly do remittances matter to their home economies?