sending babies to China

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Tue Sep 14 09:30:35 PDT 1999



>[here's a story that has it all]
>
>New York Times - September 14, 1999
>
>Women Keep Garment Jobs By Sending Babies to China
>
> By SOMINI SENGUPTA
>
>he spent her days at home with her newborn son, knowing that every
>day she did not work was another day without money to pay back her
>$20,000 smugglers' debt.
>She spent her nights awake, hushing the baby so he would not disturb
>her husband or the three other restaurant workers who shared their
>three-room apartment in northern Manhattan. She named the boy Henry,
>and for four precious months, she nursed him, even after friends
>warned that she would soon have to let him go.
>
>On the second Thursday in July, the woman, Xiu, finally did.
>Wrapping a tiny gold bracelet around his wrist, she placed her son
>in the arms of a friend of a friend, who, for $1,000, agreed to take
>him to China.
>
>Xiu's mother is raising him there now, along with the 10-year-old
>daughter left behind last year when Xiu joined her husband in New
>York. She plans to bring Henry back when he reaches school age. But
>until then

Perhaps it is time to get rid of the Multi-Fiber Agreement? To allow free trade in textiles and garments?

Brad DeLong



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