Trade & Gender
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Articles from the Surviving
Free Trade trip:
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Surviving Free Trade: Women's Voices from Nicaragua
and Honduras
Travel Seminar: May 26- June 8,
2002
From May 26 to June 8 of this year
EPICA led a group of ten people to Nicaragua and Honduras. Our
objective was to hear from women about how "free" trade and neoliberal
economic policies were affecting their lives. We met with urban
and rural women, maquila workers, farmers, small business owners, union
members, single mothers, journalists, activists, academics, and women's
advocates. We also met with representatives of the government, private
sector, and U.S. embassies. What we learned was a source of both great
concern and great inspiration.
As delegation members continue to
process their experiences and transfer them into writing, we will post
them at this site. Feel free to write us your thoughts, and stay tuned
to participate in future EPICA Travel Seminars!
PHOTOS:
1) EPICA
delegation with Freddys Rojas, union lawyer for maquila workers
in Taiwanese-owned Presitex maquila in Sébaco, Nicaragua. "We
struggled for two years just to get the Ministry of Labor to support
labor rights already guaranteed to us by the Constitution and Labor
Code!"
 2)
Zulema, a founding member of a Nicaraguan worker-owned
maquila, with delegation member Julian Pérez. "We
work hard, but it's ours."
 3) Delegation
members Mahlia Joyce, Janethe Peña, and Lana Ledwig.
 4) EPICA
delegation coordinator, Kathy Ogle, with Nicaraguan women of Sébaco
Valley. Men are migrating quickly out of the area as lack of support
for farming makes it nearly impossible to make ends meet. Women,
left with the entire burden of work and family, are looking for
solutions in home gardens, maquila jobs and women's groups.
5) Sofia
from Sébaco Valley (on the right): "Since I'm older than 35, I can't
get a job in a maquila. I am a housewife and a farmer. Since
I'm single, I do it all myself. I grow corn and beans. I herd the
cattle and make fences. I struggle so that my daughters can have
a better future."
6) Delegation members Mahlia
Joyce and Janethe Peña with union members of the textile section
of the Sandinista Worker's Central in Nicaragua.
7) Mary
McCann and members of COMAL, an alternative marketing organization
in Honduras. "We value work and participation more than capital."
8) Lenca
women of the Civic Counsel of Honduran Indigenous and Popular Organizations
(COPINH) gather with delegation members. "We want to have a say in
the kind of development that happens here. If we lose our lands,
we will have nothing to give to our children."
9) COPINH
women draw their realities to explain them to the EPICA delegation.
"This is a picture of a child with diarrhea because there is no
clinic. This is a picture of a man beating his wife."
10) These Honduran women are
having trouble finding a market for the flowers they grow in their
cooperative.
11) EPICA's Kathy Ogle with
members of a Confederation of Honduran Banana Workers (COSIBAH).
They were recently forced to handle an unknown chemical that was
causing illness in some of the workers. A work stoppage temporarily
protected them, while they sought information on the chemical and
negotiated with the company.
12)
Members of Honduras´
Bloque Popular will oppose the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas and the Plan Puebla-Panamá.
13) EPICA delegation members
having lunch at guesthouse in Nicaragua. (Left to Right: Lana Ledwig,
Darcie Johnson, Zoe Craig, Janethe Peña, Jairo, Mahlia Joyce, Anne
McSweeney, Scott Wright, Alison Tittel, Kathy Ogle and Julian Pérez)
EPICA's Travel Seminars provide a unique opportunity
for people to see and hear first-hand the impact of U.S. political
and economic policies on the poor of Central America, Mexico and the
Caribbean. Face to face encounters with leaders of grassroots organizations
and churches offer a critical perspective on the power of the poor
to organize and create just alternatives. Delegations typically last
seven to ten days, and include ten to twenty participants.
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