In 2005, a 19-year-old Texas woman working in Iraq for federal defense contractor KBR said she was drugged and gang raped by co-workers and then held against her will in a shipping container by her employer.

The woman, Jamie Leigh Jones, eventually returned to the United States through the help of her congressional representative.

Before the incident, Jones said she told KBR, then a subsidiary of Halliburton, about a hostile working and living environment full of sexual harassment where a small number of women lived with hundreds of men, but the contractor did nothing. KBR has denied Jones’ allegations.

Jones is suing KBR in a civil lawsuit. The company says an agreement she signed as a condition of employment requires her to go through private, binding arbitration to resolve her claim.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate approved on a 68-30 vote an amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill that would prohibit the department from spending money on existing or new contracts if the contractor or a subcontractor requires employees to resolve sexual assault, discrimination or certain other claims through arbitration.

Kansas’ two senators — Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, both Republicans — voted against the amendment.

When asked Monday by the Lawrence Journal-World why they voted against the amendment, neither senators’ office provided a response. Brownback is running for governor of Kansas in 2010.

The amendment was authored by U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.

“Contractors are using fine print to deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court,” Franken said during debate on the proposal.

Republican senators who voted against the amendment and who have commented said they believed that arbitration was a better way to settle employee-employer grievances and that the amendment was an overreach by the government into business dealings.

“The Congress should not be involved in writing or rewriting private contracts,” said Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also opposes the amendment.

A briefing document prepared by the Republican Policy Committee says, “The real motivation behind this amendment is, of course, Democrat hostility to all things arbitration, on behalf of trial lawyers.”

Ten Republicans, however, did vote for the amendment.

Jones has started a foundation for people who have been crime victims while working abroad for government contractors. Recently, a federal appeals court panel said that despite signing the arbitration clause, Jones’ civil case can go forward. KBR has said it disagrees with the ruling and is considering an appeal.