Message from jwyss

[Anonymous]

Some of the seminar posters have asked, "Who is responsible?" Unfortunately the simple answer is that, in large and small ways, we all are. Remember, if you will, the economic crash of the Asian Tigers-Thailand, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, etc.-in the late 1990's. Due to a simple rumor, Thailand did not have enough dollars to back up its currency, the globalized marketplace disappeared $600 billion dollars from the Asian stock markets [Klein, Naomi, The Shock Doctrine,2007]. The International Monetary Fund and the United States did nothing to forestall this disaster until, finally, they demanded that these countries trim their domestic social economies, divest themselves of state-owned assets, and open their markets completely. The result, of course, was that American corporate raiders bought up a huge stake in these economies as all parts of these economies were downsized with massive layoffs. Klein is worth quoting: " Behind every statistic was a story of wrenching sacrifice and degraded decisions. As is always the case, women and children suffered the worst of the crisis. Many rural families in the Philippines and South Korea sold their daughters to human trafficers who took them to work in the sex trade... In Thailand, public health officials reported a 20% increase in child prostitution in just one year...It was in this context that the U.S. secretary of state, Madelieine Albright, visited Thailand in March 1999 and saw fit to scold the Thai public for turning to prostitution and the "dead end of drugs." It is "essential that girls not be exploited and abused and exposed to AIDS. It is very important to fight back," Albright said, filled with moral resolve. She apparently saw no connection between the fact that so many Thai girls were being forced into the sex trade and the austerity policies for which she expressed her "strong support" on the same trip [Klein, 344-45]. I think its time to up my charitable giving since I have no other recourse to being involved.
The special series, Naked China which I mentioned in another forum, also did a pod on the sex trade in China. The women work in the beauty trade-manicurists pedicurists, hairdressers- are migrants, deeply in debt, and in this video, work in the sex trade managed by organized crime at one level or another. The producers indicate that it is estimated there are 6 to 10 million sex workers in this illegal trade. Here is the link for "China Sex Workers":
http://current.com/items/76372902_china_sex_workers.