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Subscribe to RSSA Rock Center investigation uncovered dozens of cases of foreign exchange students sexually abused or harassed by their U.S. host parents. NBC News' Kate Snow reports.
The State Department announced major changes Friday to its premier student-exchange program following an investigation by The Associated Press that found widespread abuses.
The agency issued new rules for the J-1 Summer Work Travel Program, which brings more than 100,000 foreign college students to the United States each year.
Rock Center: Critics blame State Department for turning a blind eye on sex abuse
The changes are the latest in a series of steps the State Department has taken to fix the program since the 2010 AP investigation. The investigation found that some participants were working in strip clubs, not always willingly, while others were put in living and working conditions they compared to indentured servitude.
In one of the worst cases of abuse, a woman told the AP she was beaten, raped and forced to work as a stripper in Detroit after being promised a job as a waitress in Virginia.
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More common than sex-trade problems were shabby housing, hefty work hours and paltry pay. In August, dozens of workers protested conditions at a candy factory that packs Hershey chocolates in Hershey, Penn., complaining of hard physical labor and pay deductions for rent that often left them with little money.
Officials say the new rules limit the hours and jobs participants can work, and make clear the program is about fostering cultural understanding.
Rock Center: Foreign exchange students sexually abused in program overseen by State Department
The J-1 program, created under the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, allows foreign college students to spend up to four months living and working in the U.S. It was meant to encourage cultural exchanges, but has become a multimillion-dollar international business.
"In recent years, the work component has too often overshadowed the core cultural component necessary for the Summer Work Travel Program to be consistent with the intent of the Fulbright-Hays Act," the State Department said in a statement announcing the new rules.
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"Also, the Department learned that criminal organizations were involving participants in incidents relating to the illegal transfer of cash, the creation of fraudulent businesses, and violations of immigration law."
The program was meant to allow students who couldn't otherwise afford to visit the U.S. to work in seasonal, temporary jobs to offset the costs of their travel. But many participants have been packed into overcrowded housing and sent to work in places including factories, where they had little exposure to U.S. culture.
The new rules are meant to ensure that students get jobs where there will be interaction with Americans. There also are three new rules meant to protect U.S. workers, including prohibiting companies from hiring J-1 workers if the company has had layoffs in the previous 120 days.
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The program works. Even with the abuses, they are teaching cultural understanding.
They don't have case-managers and an oversight system that monitors directly what is going on? No standard description of appropriate housing, costs to be addressed by students for living needs supplied, and no enforcement arm with investigatory powers at the level of the placement? Who designed this? In the sixties this would be outdated, but there is no excuse for lack of monitoring and direct intervention through supervision. Has it grown too big to work?
We have been helping American enterprises to hire motivated, eager workers from abroad under The Work and Travel USA Program since 2003. You don't have to pay anything. You just let us know about your seasonal staffing needs and choose whom to hire. We do the rest, selecting appropriate candidates, sending you their applications and settling everything. Register now to find out more about hiring J1 students and benefit from it!