Verité Update: Volume 4
Did you know?
- Verité collaborates with NGOs around the world to increase their capacity to empower women.
- Women are poorer than men: They make up 70% of the world's population living in poverty.
- Women make less money than men for equal work, in Mexico as well as many other countries around the world.
Verité is making strides in improving working conditions for
women in Mexico.
The Problem. There are close to 500,000 women working in the Maquiladora plants in Mexico manufacturing goods for export to the United States and other countries. Women make up sixty percent of the manufacturing workforce and many of them are between the ages of 14 and 24. These women often travel far away from their homes to find work in factories, leaving them without support networks and with heightened vulnerability to exploitation both inside and outside factory walls.
Verité's extensive social monitoring in Mexico has revealed critical labor issues and human rights abuses against women associated with equality, health and safety, wages, overtime, and pregnancy discrimination.
Verité's Solution. Verité initiated a training and capacity building program to improve the lives of women in Mexico. This initiative examines violations of women's rights in the workplace and advocates solutions through research, education, and training with governments, multinational corporations, factory managers, investors, and workers.
Verité's model to achieve safer and more equitable working conditions is broad-based.
- Training workers equips them with knowledge and skills relating to women's rights and labor law, sexual harassment awareness, wellness and reproductive health, and financial self-sufficiency.
- Training factory managers helps them to appreciate how equitable employment practices can create a more productive working environment, and links CSR and brand transparency with strategies to remain competitive in a global marketplace.
- Engaging with local NGOs builds their capacity to leverage the power of business to negotiate more effectively for women's rights in the long term.
By collaborating with local NGOs, helping businesses understand the practical impact of corporate responsibility, and giving workers knowledge and skills, we have made important strides towards long-term improvements in working conditions for women in the garment sector in Mexico. Our next steps include deepening linkages between Mexican NGOs and the business sector, and extending our learning to the growing electronics assembly industry in Mexico.
Read more about this initiative in our next issue of Verité Works.
