This speech was delivered by Free Youth Internet editor James Russell at a November 30th Rally on the Amherst Massachusetts town common against the World Trade Organization, occuring simultaneously with the main Anti-WTO protest in Seattle
Today, on this international day of action, I speak of a problem that is hidden away from our eyes. Child labor, that most insidious form of worker exploitation, that turns a helpless child into another cog in the machine of the global economy. It is something most of us may not know much about, but which the staff of the World Trade Organization knows perfectly well occurs, and they are consciously and willfully ignoring the plight of child laborers in their runaway pursuit of profits, no matter what the cost. Imagine your child, or one you care about, forced to work long hours under hellish conditions for the profit of a far-off CEO. Even the coldest heart must find this picture shocking. But the hearts of the WTO leaders must be colder than ice.
In their undemocratic show trials, the WTO has consistently ruled against anything that is considered a barrier to "free trade", such as laws protecting children from exploitation. According to WTO policy, it is illegal for a nation to ban or boycott a product for how it is made, even if it is made by children or slaves, such as soccer ball industry of Pakistan. Nations can even be punished by fine for refusing to buy products made by children! The WTO is an organization without one iota of conscience. It's support of so-called "trade liberalization" is a shallow euphemism for beating every ounce of profit they can get out of workers, no matter what their age or the conditions they work on.
International conglomerates are in a race to the bottom, chasing the lowest price of production and highest profit. . If using indentured servants or children lowers the bottom line, they will do so, with the support of the WTO. Hiding behind the closed doors of their Seattle conference the WTO keep out of sight the true consequences of their policies. It is only by feigning ignorance that they can deny facing the guilt for their crimes of globalization - Children forced to work in sweatshops. The hard won human rights victories concerned citizens have won in the United States can be callously brushed aside by the World Trade Organization, which usurps any of our nation's laws it sees fit. The child labor restrictions Mother Jones and Cesar Chavez spent their lives working for can be repealed with merely the stroke of a pen by some obscure WTO beuracrat.
We have gathered here on the common today to resist the WTO on behalf of every child in every nation, who at this very moment toils bound to a sewing machine a sweatshop, watching their childhood disappear into sewing petty luxuries for the wealthy. Children who have never had a chance to play, or get an education, or simply enjoy the exuberance of youth, and they never will unless we act. Laboring under the threat of starvation and abuse, to stuff the pockets of corporations and the clothing racks of our malls. The WTO places dollars, pieces of printed paper, above the lives and spirits of poor children.
May all of us gathered here today let those in the sweatshops know that that their cries for liberation has not gone unheard, and are now being stated and amplified in words of each activist, sign, and publication against globalization, until their voices resonate thoughout our nation, in every sweatshop, and on the streets of Seattle, AS the downtrodden children and youth workers of the world exclaim in different languages but with one voice that they will not let their overseers run rampant, that they will not let a global economy be built upon the backs of children. Child labor must end now, along with its most vile proponent, the World Trade Organization!
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