The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a sweeping multinational free-trade act that amounts to a carte blanche for global capitalism, offers no protection for children who are exploited, abused, overworked, and underpaid. During GATT negotiations, leaders of Third World countries successfully argued against placing any restrictions on child labor, arguing that children have always worked in their cultures and such traditional practices should be respected. To prohibit child labor would limit the free market and effect severe hardship on those poor families in which a child is often
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