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Lorene Jones-Rucker
May 5, 2004
Anti-Globalization, Women, and Sustainable
Development
On April 22, 2004, Former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney (D, GA) delivered a speech to the Georgia Tech Globalization Forum. In her speech she addresses many negative aspects of globalization. The first issue she discusses is the lack of jobs due to migration of major corporations overseas for cheap labor. Secondly, she discusses the widening gap between rich and poor. The final issue was sexual slavery and human trafficking. Representative McKinney says at the beginning of her speech that globalization “used to be perceived as something that happened to poor workers in faraway places…Now globalization has come home”.
Representative McKinney estimates that millions of jobs have been lost in America due to corporate migration. The major corporations leave the United States and go to periphery countries where they pay the workers cheap wages. This is hurtful to both economies because it takes away jobs from the American economy and maintains the poverty level and low standard of living in the other countries. However, with the system the heads of these major corporations profit and it becomes another case of the “rich getting richer”. Representative McKinney suggest that the American government stop giving these countries tax breaks and instead place taxes on the imports of these corporations.
The second issue is the wage gap between the rich and the poor more specifically, the conditions in which these poor people live. They live without safe drinking water, without sanitation, lack adequate housing, lack modern health services, and poor education. However, the problem does not belong solely to belong to “Third World” countries. In the United States, more that 34 million American live below the poverty line and approximately 300, 000 veterans are homeless. Yet, the premier world power, the United States government spends billions of dollars on a war for the rich.
The last issue discussed in the speech was the reality of sexual slavery and human trafficking. Women, men, and children are being sold into forced labor and sexual slavery. In some cases, taken abroad and their internal organs are sold for capital. Representative McKinney states, “This human tragedy is borne out of world wide poverty. In fact human trafficking is the ultimate form of globalization, people doing anything to generate commerce”.
Some of the anti-globalization groups include the Sin Tierra, Oxfam, International Forum of Globalization, Ruckus society, and 50 years is Enough. The Sin Tierra group focuses on the Brazilian landless workers movement. The Ruckus society is the key player in environmental human rights. Finally, 50 Years is Enough is a coalition dedicated to the transformation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
These groups have made significant strides in the anti-globalization movement through protests and getting the word spread about anti-globalization. One of the main anti-globalizationist and author of the Silent Takeover, Noreen Hertz states, “to fight corporate power around the world, protestor must know the enemy and start organizing…”