CODEMUH feminist collective reports conditions for maquilas workers in Honduras have worsened with the pandemic

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Maria Luisa Regalado is the coordinator and a founding member of CODEMUH.

The Colectiva de Mujeres Hondureñas (CODEMUH or the Honduran Women’s Collective) is a feminist, popular, autonomous, grassroots organization.

It recently tweeted this Radio Canada International article: Canadian clothing made in Honduras | Fatigue, stress and poverty, effects of COVID on maquilas workers.

That article notes: “As part of World Day of Occupational Safety and Health [on April 28] CODEMUH, presented a study [that found] the physical, emotional and financial health of maquilas workers deteriorated markedly since the beginning of the pandemic.”

Maquilas refer to areas/zones where foreign companies own factories that produce products, including clothing, at low wages for foreign markets.

Radio Progreso has also reported: “More than 70% of the workers in the maquilas show physical, emotional, economic and social health effects, according to a study carried out between October 2020 and March 2021 by CODEMUH.”

A few weeks after the pandemic began in March 2020, Maria Luisa Regalado, the coordinator of CODEMUH, had stated: “We’re scared to lose our jobs…but we feel impotent. Those of us who are renters don’t know how we’ll pay the rent. There’s a lot that’s unknown. We don’t know what’s going to happen with our lives.”

In May 2015, Rabble reported: “Conditions in Canadian-owned Gildan garment factories are among the worst in Honduras says Reyna Tejada, a former factory worker and representative from CODEMUH, a feminist labour organization. Tejada was in Vancouver to speak at the CUPE-BC convention, held April 29 to May 2.”

CODEMUH has highlighted that it promotes “a comprehensive systematic process on the human rights of women in the area of ​​violence due to their gender and workplace violence, with an emphasis on occupational health, also sexual rights and reproductive health with a feminist political vision.”

For more on the work of CODEMUH and the issue of maquilas, there are also these articles posted by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE).

You can follow CODEMUH on Twitter here.


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