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| Volume 3, Issue 2 -- January 20, 2006 |
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From the JPIC Office While I was in Manila in December, a Columban associate priest showed me around his urban neighborhood of houses built with the weakest materials, stacked upon and next to each other. The narrow walkways required us to walk single-file while dodging women doing laundry and cooking and children running in and out of doorways. I spotted a chicken coop precariously attached outside a second floor window of one home, and there were pools of water and dampness all around. The whole place looked like it could be blown away by a strong gust of wind. I especially remember one woman among the many who greeted us. She asked us to pray for her because she was leaving that night to work in Saudi Arabia. Most likely, she will work as a domestic worker or a healthcare provider. She said she had worked eight years in Hong Kong and in Taiwan for another two. Now she was off again for two years in the Middle East. In less than 12 hours, this woman was to be separated from her family in a completely foreign culture where she did not speak the language. My heart broke for this woman. It was uncertain exactly where she would be working, but it was certain that it was going to be difficult. How could it not? Even in the best of circumstances, migration to another country is difficult. And undoubtedly her circumstances were far from ideal. Most people who leave the Philippines to find work live in such desperate conditions that they must find work abroad and send back earnings to help the family survive. This woman was no different. Her sole objective in working in Saudi Arabia was to send money to family members so they could have an education, food and healthcare. She had already sacrificed 10 years of her life away from her family and community, and she was about to leave for two more years. As a mother myself, I was humbled by her selflessness and wondered if I, too, would have the strength to make such a sacrifice for my family. I thought about this woman on January 13 during a meeting intended to debrief the faith-based, economic justice advocacy community in Washington D.C. about the implications of the World Trade Organization’s ministerial meetings in Hong Kong that took place in December. While the negotiating points are a bit like a chess game, the overall analysis is that the agenda for creating a global neo-liberal market is moving forward. This model leaves people in developing countries more vulnerable to exploitation; it creates a deep and wide gap between rich and poor; it makes commodities of our environmental resources; it forces a woman to go abroad for up to 12 years so her family can eat and receive an education. This woman has given up so much in her life, and she is probably living in the same conditions she was when she left for the first time to go to Hong Kong. Where is the promised progress? We in the West are taught that if we work hard, we can achieve anything. I have no doubt this woman has worked harder than many in her lifetime, and yet she must leave her family, community and country so her children can have a better life. Do we want an economic system that forces people to make this kind of choice? I wonder what this woman’s daily life is like in Saudi Arabia, but I don’t have to wonder how much she misses her children. And I don’t have to wonder how much she wants to go home. It will be hard to forget this woman as long as people are forced to make these life-or-death decisions so their families can survive.
Migration In December 2005, Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) introduced immigration legislation that was passed in the House of Representatives that has migrants and immigrants’ rights activists concerned. Our colleagues at “Network: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby” offer the following analysis and implications if the legislation is passed in the Senate and becomes law. Legislation Scripture and Catholic social tradition call us to fairness and hospitality. The new “border security” bill (HR 4437) introduced by Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-5-Wisc.) December 6 and passed by the House of Representatives on December 16 introduces harsh new penalties for undocumented persons in the United State and for those who show them compassion. Unlike the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act which NETWORK supports, HR 4437 does nothing to address the cause of undocumented migration. Instead, HR 4437 focuses on an “enforcement only” approach which will most likely further marginalize undocumented immigrants and those who have contact with them. Implications
NETWORK’s Position HR 4437 contains several positions, like those listed above, which are shocking in their lack of compassion. Catholic social tradition recognizes the right of a person to migrate in search of a better life. HR 4437 would limit the capacity of a person to seek economic equity in the United States without attempting to address the social conditions in the sending nations. While Catholic social tradition also maintains a country has a right to protect its borders, HR 4437 is unlikely to accomplish that. Without comprehensive immigration reform, the United States will never have true border security. By leveling overly harsh penalties on vulnerable persons, HR 4437 does not deliver security, but rather, it creates fear, insecurity and mistrust. NETWORK opposes HR 4437 and lobbied for its defeat. Despite its passage in the House of Representatives, NETWORK will continue to voice opposition to such harsh and punitive measures. The Senate is not scheduled to take up similar legislation. NETWORK will continue its lobbying efforts for comprehensive immigration reform and will work against a companion bill to HR 4437 should the Senate introduce one.
For more information about immigration reforms NETWORK supports, please visit our page on Comprehensive Immigration Reform: www.networklobby.org/issues/immigration_reform.htm Economic Justice For months, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office has been negotiating with the Andean countries of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia to establish a multilateral free trade agreement. In the latest report from the Congress Daily, the United States has moved to prioritize bilateral negotiations, particularly with Peru.
Congress Daily – January 9, 2006 A White House push to enact a free trade pact with Peru as early as this spring will meet some resistance from congressional Democrats, but nothing on the order of last year’s epic clash over the Central America Free Trade Agreement, trade sources said today. President Bush late Friday notified Congress that he intends to sign the bilateral trade deal with Peru, setting the stage for that signing to take place in April, according to timelines laid out in presidential trade negotiating authority. Thea Lee, chief international economist for the AFL-CIO, said that in the context of recent debates over trade deals, the U.S.-Peru agreement would be a “medium-sized battle ... It’s maybe not quite at the level of CAFTA, but certainly more than [popular agreements with] Morocco and Australia,” she said. A House Democratic aide said passage of the deal is “greatly complicated” by the absence in the agreement of obligations, sought by Democrats, to adhere to international labor standards. In opposition to the agreement's labor provisions, Democrats will likely cite a statement by President Alejandro Toledo in a meeting with Ways and Means Committee members that he could accept the inclusion of such obligations. Exports of U.S. goods to Peru now reach about $2 billion annually, and agriculture and industrial exports would benefit from substantial tariff reductions under the pact. The administration is also touting key openings in the financial and telecommunications services sectors for U.S. firms. But it is still unclear if Congress will take up the Peru agreement and pass it on its own, or will wait for progress on related trade deals with Colombia or Ecuador, still under negotiation. Senate Finance Chairman Grassley (R-IA) last month signaled in a letter to Trade Representative Rob Portman he is eager to move the Peru agreement on its own, and not wait for other Andean nations to follow. “It has long been our desire to proceed with an overall Andean agreement, but we will proceed with whoever is ready,” said a spokeswoman for Portman. A Senate Finance aide added that Grassley wants to complete work on the Peru deal this year. Other bilateral free trade agreements that could come before Congress this year include trade deals with Oman—for which negotiations have been concluded, the United Arab Emirates, and Panama, both still under negotiation. Genetic Engineering The following is a letter written by Columban Father Pat McMullan to Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, permanent observer for the Holy See to the United Nations Office, in response to his address during the Sixth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong, December 2005. Father McMullan raises key questions about our care for the Earth as well as harmfully prioritized economic policies.
Feast of the Epiphany Your Excellency, I read with interest your recent address to the plenary session of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation. I was particularly gratified to read not only of your call for "a fair system of trade rules" but also your challenge to the delegates to recognise the normative nature of the universal destination of the goods of the earth, particularly essential services such as health, education, water and food. I am impressed that you made this address on behalf of the Majority World, i.e. that half of the world’s population of 6 billion that exists on less than 2 USD per day. As you note, a “socially just international trading system” built on justice and peace provides the “indispensable conditions for sustainable development and for the alleviation of poverty”. Nevertheless, I question whether we, as Church people, can continue to speak exclusively in terms of “the human person at the centre of any development and trade strategy”. As the late Pope John Paul II so beautifully recognised, we need to nurture an “ecological conversion” (Pope John Paul II’s General Audience Address, January 17, 2001). Seen through these eyes, the contemporary emphasis on development and trade is despotic. I suggest that our authentic voice in today's world is to call all the global institutions to become ministerial, i.e. the environment, of which human persons are a vital part, would be at the centre of any development and trade strategy. In the face of the urgency and enormity of the global environmental crisis, do we not all have to rethink our preconceived notions of the world and its reality? Nor, I wonder, should we be calling for weak economies to be supported to improve their “supply capacity and trade-related infrastructure in order to be able to translate improved market access into increased exports”? Instead, is it not more important to protect the capacity of small rural farmers to feed their local communities, particularly through enhancing local biodiversity and actively promoting the concept of food sovereignty? Are these not concrete and discernible ways to promote a spirit of solidarity and a move away from ceaseless competition? Your Excellency, I had hoped that you would have called into question Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPs agreement. This article is the international legal mechanism that allows some individuals and companies to claim patent rights over living organisms. At a recent international conference in the Philippines, the inequities of article 27.3(b), particularly in relation to the impact on the majority of the world's small rural farmers, were discussed at length. I can not think of a more glaring example of the destructive impact of the contemporary international regulatory system on small rural farmers, and the nearly 2_ billion people that their efforts sustain, than the legal abnegation of the traditional right of small rural farmers not only to save and share their seeds but also to force them to use genetically engineered seeds. Action to bring about the urgent repeal of Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPs agreement is, without doubt, entirely consistent with Pope Benedict XVI’s recent Address to the 33rd UN Food and Agricultural Conference. It would seem to me that our most prophetic voice in today’s world is to speak from the depth of our own tradition. In this respect, I do not understand the apparent silence of the Holy See concerning TRIPs 27.3(b). Most surely, our authentic tradition calls us to proclaim that God the Father alone is the Creator of all life, seen and unseen. And, more concretely, that the stealing and coveting of ones neighbour’s goods is an offence against the God who created this wondrously fruitful world for the sustenance and pleasure of all human beings. While hoping that my views may be of assistance to Your Excellency, I remain
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