Jillian Richmond
Input Paper 2
Although 300 to 400 women and girls have been found brutally murdered at the Mexican border town of Ciduad Juarez since the signing of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, no one has been found responsible for these horrible crimes, nor has there been a great effort by the Mexican government to find the culprits (Arriola). George W. Bush has said that he believes more free trade between countries leads to the expansion of civil and political freedom. However, Armartya Sen would argue that President Bush has a narrow view of development, and that although growth of GNP can be “very important as means to expanding the freedoms enjoyed by the members of society…freedoms depend also on other determinants, such as social and economic arrangements” (Sen 3). In looking at the advent of the NAFTA and its relation to Mexico development, it is clear that while there has been substantial economic growth in Mexico, its implementation has resulted in a loss of many freedoms and comes at the expense of human rights. Most of the murdered women worked in the maquiladoras, where women are exploited so that Mexico can become a major player in global economic politics (Arriola). I would like to argue that NAFTA, United States corporations, and the United States and Mexican governments are responsible for creating and fostering an environment that has allowed such a large number of murders and violations of human rights to take place, making it increasingly important for women and organizations to build links internationally and create a transnational resistance.
It is first important to understand the maquiladora system and how NAFTA has played a role in its accelerated growth. Maquiladoras were created in Mexico around 1960 to boost Mexico’s economy by attracting foreign investment and creating jobs for its citizens (Kagan 155). Maquiladoras are foreign owned assembly plants that import inputs such as raw materials or machinery, processes them, and then ships them back to the country of origin, typically the United States (Gruben). Since the advent of NAFTA, maquiladoras’ output and employment growth have increased substantially, as United States corporations are enticed by the prospect of cheaper labor costs and tariff exemptions (Kagan 156). Though tariff exemptions are offered throughout Mexico under NAFTA, the maquiladora industry is mostly situated along the Mexico-United States border (Kagan 157). While the promise of NAFTA for Mexico was an improvement in wages and employment conditions, the opposite happened (Rubble). Families who were lured by NAFTA to move to the border and work in the maquiladoras soon found that they were subjected to nonliving wages and frightening social conditions (Arriola). Most of the workers at the maquiladoras who are victims of the illusionary promise of NAFA are women, as companies like GE, Sony, and Panasonic who have relocated to Mexico prefer women to work at their factories (Arriola). In addition to having smaller hands and fingers, women are viewed as “not only more docile and passive than Mexican men, but submissive, easily trainable and unlikely to pose problems with union organizing” (Arriola). Gender based attitudes affect everything from the recruitment and hiring to the treatment of women in the maquiladoras (Arriola).
Unfortunately, although the maquiladoras succeeded in providing jobs, there are many human rights concerns associated with the sector. Problems with maquiladoras include health and safety concerns, exposure to dangerous chemicals, improper or lack of safety equipment and training, excessively long workweeks and hours, and a high incidence rate of worker injuries and negative health effects. Employment conditions can be so terrible that there is a three times greater chance of low birth-weight babies for pregnant women who worked in the maquiladoras. For a while, women wanting to work at the maquiladoras were forced to undergo a mandatory pregnancy test, as companies refused to hire pregnant applicants. This was perhaps due to the fact that Mexico’s labor laws required that companies provide a six-week paid maternity leave before and after a woman’s due date (La Botz). Moreover, women in the plants are also subjugated to sexual harassment by Mexican foremen in charge who report to foreign-born supervisors (La Botz). The 300 to 400 murders that have taken place along the border are an “extreme manifestation of the systemic patterns of abuse, harassment and violence against women who work in the maquiladoras” (Arriola).
NAFTA, United States corporations, and the United States and Mexican governments are responsible for the condition in the community that has allowed these murders to happen and continue (La Botz). United States corporations have instilled maquiladoras without an adequate social structure to support them (La Botz). NAFTA and the United States corporations have contributed to the increased population in border cities, decreased wages, and poverty, resulting in violence in Cidudad Juarez (Duddy). The corporations and governments have created super-highways, railroad tracks and terminals, and airports to aid in their importing and exporting of goods, yet they let their workers live in shacks made of mud and in a city where most streets are unpaved, dusty, without running water, sewers, or electricity (La Botz). After paying their female workers on average of four dollars a day for their tedious and hard work, corporations do not provide any secure transportation home, forcing women to choose between spending their low wages on a bus fare or walking home through the dangerous streets. The United States and Mexican governments have not taken the murders or employment conditions seriously enough. Although Mexican labor law does provide a good framework to protect and recognize worker’s rights, the government instead focuses on having high employment rates and therefore does not consistently enforce its laws (Kagan 179). Moreover, the state and local governments along with the corporations have created a pact to keep unions out of plants (La Botz). It is evident that without regulation to help the workers in standard free trade law and policy, the women in maquiladoras will continue to suffer the unbearable working conditions and threatening safety conditions around them (Arriola).
The numerous murders have gained international attention and are being seen as a major human rights problem for Mexico (Arriola), driving women and organizations to built alliances across nations. In 2003, the United Nations Commission of Human Rights stated, “transnational corporations have the obligation to promote, secure the fulfillment of, respect, ensure respect of, and protect human rights recognized in international as well as national law” (Kagan 177). Many corporations have generated self-promoting campaigns which claim they are socially responsible, yet the companies do not change or create provisions in trade agreements to protect their workers (Arriola). On a positive note, women have created global resistance groups, such as the Comite Fronterizo de Oberaras (CFO) to fight against free trade policies and corporations which take advantage of them. Women can work together to renegotiate these trade agreements, which leave out “guarantees of fair, healthy labor practices, of the rights to speak freely and to organize independently” and therefore leave women, the main targets for laborers of large corporations, to suffer (Enloe 45). Although international labor and environmental activism existed before NAFTA, NAFTA has “framed this activism, giving different organizations more basis for organizing across borders…[and] provided these organization with an institutional framework in which to direct their demands” (Dominguez 226). The CFO aims to improve workers’ conditions through the protection of their salaries, benefits, profit sharing, health, life and welfare. They would also like to increase the participation of women workers in restructuring male-dominated unions to become more aware of women workers’ concerns (Dominguez 227). CFO was the main organization to gather information to prove that mandatory pregnancy tests for female workers violated federal labor code. CFO was successful because it combined women’s, human rights and labor rights issues, garnering more attention and leverage (Dominguez 229). It is necessary for organizations to continue to establish strong links “among workers in countries targeted for ‘development’ by multinational corporations” and to combine issues to protect the rights of female workers at the maquiladoras (Enloe 49).
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