JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Southern Poverty Law Center is calling on the U.S. government to reform cultural exchange programs, saying those have left some foreign participants vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.The SPLC said in a report Tuesday that U.S. State Department’s cultural exchange programs are providing businesses in the United States with cheap and exploitable labor at the expense of participants who pay thousands of dollars to experience American culture.The lengthy report also cites a 2010 investigation by The Associated Press that uncovered similar labor and housing problems in the J-1 Summer Work Travel program, which annually allows more than 100,000 foreign college students to spend their summers working in the U.S.Susan Pittman, a spokeswoman with the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that she couldn’t respond directly to the report. But she said the agency has made a number of improvements, including passage of stronger regulations in 2012.The new rules included capping the number of participants in the Summer Work Travel program at 109,000 and limiting the kinds of jobs that participants are allowed to take in an effort to ensure a strong cultural component in the program.Pittman also said a number of companies designated by the State Department as official sponsors to facilitate the program have been sanctioned or removed from the program and that the agency has increased staff and site visits to check on sponsors and participants.The December 2010 AP investigation found that some participants had worked in strip clubs, either by choice or because they were forced to. Other participants took home $1 an hour or less, after housing and transportation deductions, for menial jobs such as housekeepers.