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Sajjan > Zafaryab Ahmad > Articles > Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram
Is it possible for the "underdeveloped" or the "developing” countries to comply with the standards and rules set by international organizations, and at the same time promote democracy and human rights? Isn't the United States aware of the obvious conflict between its commitment to promote human rights and the effects of these international mandates? Isn't it aware of the adverse effects these policies would have on the economies of developing countries? These and many other such questions come to mind when one looks at the stark discrepancy between what is expected to be achieved and what is actually happening. Let us take the case of child labor in Pakistan . It has been reported that the United States is expected to ban the import of certain items manufactured with forced child labor in India and Pakistan . While one appreciates the U.S. concern over the use of child labor, one is tempted to point out that these measures are based on a narrow understanding of the reasons for the prevalence of child labor. Broadly speaking, child labor represents the failure of all the development efforts of the last 50 years. Child labor is not a moral or ethical problem. Simply placing the blame on "poverty" or other such categories cannot help to redress it. The problem is structural and complex and needs to be understood at all levels of its complexity. First, let us consider the myth that poverty is the reason for the use of child labor. A simple understanding of the law of supply and demand shows that it is not poverty that drives parents in developing countries to produce more children and send them to work. They produce more children because there is a market for cheap labor in the form of child labor and female labor. It is not only the producers in Pakistan and India who are the beneficiaries of child labor. The retailer and the consumer in the United States and other Western countries also benefit from these violations of human rights. Hence, measures like banning the imports of products made by child labor, instead of reducing the use of child labor, could possibly swell their ranks. This can have adverse effects on promotion of human rights and democracy and those campaigning for these causes in their respective countries. The possibility is that in the wake of such of sanctions the use of child labor will not end but will be used in disguised forms. What is needed instead is to harmonize economic policies with the ideals of human rights and justice. In the 1980s there was hope that with the end of the cold war the vision based on containment policy would change. People thought that the U.S. commitment to promote democracy and human rights in the world would be boundless. Its future policies would create situations conducive to the promotion of democracy and human rights in countries like Pakistan . Instead what they have seen is that in the post-cold war period policies of multilateral financial institutions, closely identified with the U.S. in the minds of the people of the developing countries, have worsened the conditions. There has been a phenomenal rise in the cost of living in developing countries. Instead of increases in jobs the ranks of the unemployed have swelled. The "globalization" process -- helped along by such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization -- instead of creating a community of nations, appears instead to be changing the world into a place with an abundance of cheap labor and unemployment. Globalization could, however, ensure the well being of a "broad segment of the world population," as the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright puts it in one of her recent articles in Foreign Affairs. If that is the objective, then the U.S. government will have to make sure that investment overseas does not simply mean providing cheap goods to the American consumer and maximizing profits. If the United States is sincere with its political agenda then investment should focus on the implementation of the minimum wage, the encouragement of trade unions to strengthen the civil society, and the creation of more jobs instead of golden handshakes. The ongoing regime of the multilateral financial institutions are not only playing havoc in developing countries but also present the U.S. as a monster on the one hand and strengthens obscurantist forces on the other. There seems to be an urgent need for the U.S. to structurally readjust its national priorities. Unfortunately, the attitude today is to place the entire responsibility of the fallout from the policies of the cold war period onto the developing countries. These countries already are resistant to change, have failed to develop the civil society, lack good governance, and are marred by corruption. As an example, let us focus on Pakistan and the other countries who became independent just before or after the inception of the cold war. If the world development had not been subordinated to superpower rivalry and the international arms race the situation in these countries would have been much different. Most of these ills that afflict these societies certainly would have been taken care of. There is need of willingness on part of everybody to accept their share of responsibility for the adverse effects of cold war policies. It goes without saying that these policies were marred by the worst kind of compromises on issues of democracy and human rights. As a result much the world has suffered. The perspectives must change. The American national interests can be served in a better way if democracy and human rights are promoted as a matter of principle and not because of the exigencies of national interests. (Eye on Washington is another in a series of guest columns that examine the forging of public policy in the nation's capital.)
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