|
Name: Ligia Ivonne Jiron Gaitan Country: Nicaragua Age: 32 Ivonne was on the Witness for Peace Northwest speakers' tour in April, 2005. Ivonne has been working for 12 years in the factories (maquilas) in the Free Trade Zone in Nicaragua. She is a nurse, but due to the fact that there are no jobs in hospitals, she works in the maquilas - her only alternative. She is also a mother of four children.
"These factories come to Nicaragua to give jobs to Nicaraguans, but the products that we make in Nicaragua are then sold in other countries, especially in the United States. This doesn't leave any profits in Nicaragua or with the workers. The labor to produce clothing is very cheap - a basic monthly salary is about 1137 cordobas, or US$70, which is equal to US$2.30 a day. In the factories they obligate us to work until very late at night because the production has to continue, and we earn a miserable salary that doesn't even cover a third of the basic cost of living. In Nicaragua the basic cost of living is about US$300 per month for a family, without including education, health care, taxes, and many other things that a home needs. The whole family must work to be able to survive. "I have very sad and negative memories due to the abuse that I have received in the Free Trade Zones. They have fired me from three different companies, just for exercising my right to organize myself in a union, a right that is declared in Article 82 of the Nicaraguan Constitution. "I have very sad memories of Yong Garment, where I was employed as a line supervisor, and where I was abused and they violated my rights as a Nicaraguan citizen. As a supervisor, I didn't like the abuse or the exploitation, they slavery that existed there, so I didn't obey the orders of bosses when they asked me to abuse my equals. I didn't agree with this treatment, and I always looked for solutions for the workers but it was very difficult. It was then that the Asian owners fired me for defending human rights. Now I work in a factory called Mil Colores, and we have a union there that is fighting so that they respect our human and labor rights. Unfortunately, this is one of the only factories that has a union that is defending workers."
What affect will CAFTA have? The Free Trade Zones in Nicaragua are part of a strategy for development that is being implemented by the current government. They say that these companies are the alternative for confronting poverty in Nicaragua, but what they don't say is that this "alternative" has brought us more poverty exploitation, and abuse, and does not contribute to the health care and education of Nicaragua. The maquila is synonymous with "makeup" - it is a false solution to our social and economic problems. The maquilas are abusing people with the false promise of offering them jobs, but these are jobs that are not dignified, that pay miserable salaries. "As Central Americans we are also very alarmed as we look at the cases of other countries like Mexico under NAFTA. It is evident that NAFTA has had a negative effect on the agricultural sector and on the environment. In Nicaragua we have already been negatively impacted in the area of agriculture, and the small farmers have been obligated to move to the city to work in the Free Trade Zones. Many immigrate, leaving behind their land, because of a lack of resources and work. CAFTA will mean that more small farmers will leave agriculture, and that more Free Trade Zones will come to Nicaragua. It would leave the small farmers and rural workers as the big losers, because they would be unprotected from the avalanche of cheap subsidized products that would enter from the United States. "Today in Nicaragua we are not living with a war of bullets or bombs, but we are living with an economic war, a war of poverty, of hunger, of violations of our human and labor rights. Economic policies like CAFTA are killing us little by little, and this is almost worse for Nicaraguans." Back to Faces of Trade homepage
Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
