Free Trade Agreement :

No to Andeans - Yes to Arabs, Child Labor and Slavery





During November the US-Andean Trade Agreement sank for Good without Glory and Honor

At the same time the US Congress approved a trade agreement with Bahrain, a country with forms of child explotaition and almost slavery.

The US recently signed a Trade Pact with Morocco. These countries hardly qualify as Democracies or Workers Paradises.




Middle East and North Africa - Financial Network



http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp ... CMfKzxbHyW


Mideast trade pacts fare well



NewsStand - Saturday, November 26, 2005

The Washington Times
Jeffrey Sparshott

20051126


Excerpts :

Nov. 26--House and Senate committees this month without opposition approved a free trade agreement with Bahrain, showing support that is typical for Middle Eastern countries but in stark contrast to pacts in Latin America.

The relatively easy road for Middle Eastern countries is due at least in part to their limited impact on the U.S. economy, coupled with a high foreign policy profile.

Limited trade means fewer threats to U.S. jobs, while the region's links to terrorism make most lawmakers reluctant to vote against a potential economic helping hand.

"These agreements are one part trade and nine parts foreign policy. A large majority of members ... can see the value in building commercial ties to Muslim countries in the Middle East," said Dan Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank that supports free trade.

"In addition, these agreements face little opposition for a perverse reason -- because they involve little trade, they arouse virtually no noisy special interests," he added.

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Countries like Morocco, however, are not workers' paradises.

"An estimated 36,000 children work as junior artisans in the handicraft industry, many of them working as apprentices before they reach 12 years of age and under substandard health and safety conditions," the U.S. Labor Department said in a 2004 report.

Labor also said girls sometimes work in "adoptive servitude," girls and boys working as domestic servants and street vendors are increasingly targets of child sex tourism, and children are sometimes "rented" out by their parents to other adults to beg.

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Read more about US FTAs in

http://envyronment.com




Vicente Duque