MEXICO'S MAQUILADORA'S ABUSE WOMEN, REPORT FINDS
(Corporate Crime Reporter, 21 October 1996)

  The Mexican government fails to protect women from pregnancy testing and other discriminatory treatment in export-processing factories (maquiladoras) along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a report released last month by Human Rights Watch.
  The report finds that major U.S.-based and other corporations routinely subject prospective female employees to mandatory urine testing, invasive questions about their contraceptive use, menses schedule or sexual habits in order to screen out pregnant women and deny them jobs. The report found that some maquiladoras mistreat women or force them to resign if they become pregnant shortly after being hired.
  Maquiladoras owned by major corporations, including General Motors, General Electric, Zerlith, Panasonic, W.R. Grace, Sunbeam-Oster, Carlisle Plastics, Sanyo, and AT&T were all found to require pregnancy exams as a condition of employment, thereby subjecting women applicants to a different hiring criteria than men.
  In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Zenith Corporation said that "it is common practice among Mexican and maquiladora employers in Matamoros and Reynosa to inquire about pregnancy status as a pre-existing medical condition." Zenith admitted to screening out pregnant women from its applicant pools in order to avoid the costs of company-funded maternity benefits, according to the report.
  Mexico's maquiladora sector is dominated by U.S. corporations, which own at least 90 percent of the factories. Maquiladoras are a source of billions of dollars a year in export earnings for Mexico and employ over 500,000 workers, at least 50 percent of whom are women.
  "The Mexican government should not tolerate maquiladora development at the expense of women's human rights," said Human Rights Watch's Dorothy Thomas. "Sex discrimination is prohibited by Mexican and international human rights law. We are troubled that U.S. and other corporations openly practice sex discrimination and that the Mexican government allows this discrimination to flourish unchecked."
  Thomas said that pregnancy testing violates Mexican federal labor law, which explicitly prohibits distinctions among workers for such reasons as sex.

HOME