This last summer an international conference was held in Sweden its primary concern was on the sexual exploitation of children world wide. Much of its focus however was on the condition of children in developing countries, countries that are now being targeted by multinational corporations for large scale investment as part of the so called new global economy.

The conference drew international attention to the matter of the international sex trade; the use of young girls and boys as prostitutes in countries such as India, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, etc. and the booming business of sexual tourism. Sexual tours of developing countries are organized for North American, European and Japanese businessmen. These tours have been a booming business for the past twenty years, despite the very real dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS.

The sexual tourism industry in many Asian countries is a direct result of the war economy imposed on these countries during the American war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960's and 70's. Countries such as the Philippines and Thailand were major staging areas for American troops, resulting in a war based black market economy of sex, drugs and other goods.

There is a direct economic link between sexual tourism and the exploitation of developing countries by multinational corporations based in industrial capitalist countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan. While the news media focused on the sensational exploitation of children in third world countries during the conference, they did not make a clear link between child sexual exploitation and child labour. However many representatives at the conference, including representatives of the International Labour Organization (ILO), did make this link.

And the link is clear. As developing countries welcome increased foreign investment and major corporations move operations out of North America, Nike is a good example, they move into cheap labour zones in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. As the urban metropolitan areas in these countries develop a new industrial base traditional rural agricultural economies in these countries are destroyed. Traditional subsistence farming and manufacturing are destroyed and families are forced to send their families to the city to work. Money earned in the city is then sent back to support the family. In many cases children sold through brokers to work, whether that work is in a Nike soccer ball factory, a rug plant or textile mill or in a brothel matters little. In fact the wages differ little as well whether one works in a factory or a brothel.

While the patriarchal traditions in many of these countries places less value on young girls and women, conversely young women and children are highly valued in certain industries for their abilities, not skills, such as the ability to do fine stitching for rugs, shoes and soccer balls. CBC Witness aired a special one hour documentary on Nepalese girls sold by their fathers to brokers who then sold them to brothel owners. As the documentary showed these are the same brokers who also buy children for work in the rug industry in Pakistan and India. Which ever business will pay the broker the best price gets an indentured child worker.

In some cases young women are not so much sold into indentured servitude as forced by the family out of the home and into work. They then bring their income back home whether it is earned in brothel or factory. In the free trade zones work in factories is not only dangerous and unregulated but the women and girls face regular sexual harassment and rape. While the dangers of sexually transmitted disease, sexual torture, and abuse exist for brothel workers, work in the factories is equally dangerous and unregulated.

And who benefits, why the big corporations of course; Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Pepsi, Guess Jeans, Walt Disney the major textile and shoe manufacturing industry. And of course the middle class business men and corporate executives from Japan, Germany and the U.S. that travel to these countries in search of sexual thrills.

In Guatemala, Haiti and Brazil where street children and mass homelessness abound so do new free trade zones taking advantage of cheap labour for the production of goods for North America. Meanwhile local businessmen and their military government allies set up secret death squads dedicated to 'eliminating' the street kid problem. Its all part of a vicious cycle.

There is nothing new about the global economy, its just the same old industrial capitalism that created the 'satanic mills' of the nineteenth century. The same conditions now facing women and children in the developing world also faced workers in europe and North America not that long ago. Canada only outlawed child labour in the 1920's! And only after years of struggle by the trade union movement. And that is the solution to the problem of runaway companies and the exploitation of women, children and workers in the Third World, the international recognition of their human rights and their rights as workers to unionize.

Often apologists for exploitation claim we cannot apply our morals, customs and values to other countries. Of course they conveniently overlook that they are applying the morals, values and customs of 'capitalism' in these countries. Why should the values of trade unionism be any different. Trade unionism originated in response to capitalism and it applies as much to developing countries and peoples as it does to the industrialized countries.

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