Voices from the Global South

Defending human rights has always been at the heart of EPICA's work and it remains so. Although the wars have ended, human rights continue to be violated in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean with alarming frequency and impunity. EPICA will continue to focus on human rights even as we increasingly make the connection between corporate globalization and the militarization that accompanies it. The issue of human rights will continue to be reflected in our publications, our delegations, in our advocacy, organizing and coalitional work, and in our work with the local immigrant community.

EPICA believe that human rights also include economic, social and cultural rights. Our human rights work will increasingly focus on rights that are being violated by corporate globalization, crushing the poor through the heavy burden of debt payments; depriving small farmers of a livelihood through free trade agreements that favor global profits over domestic food security; violating the rights of indigenous peoples to their communal lands and natural resources; oppressing young women and children in sweatshops that destroy their health and the surrounding environment; and denying entire peoples the right to determine the course of their own development.