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Every year more women working in
the maquiladoras of Tijuana seek legal counseling at Casa de la
Mujer Factor X. They report exposure to toxic substances, unrecorded
work accidents, sexual harassment, and unjustified terminations
due to pregnancy. Because many of these women struggle to work ten-hour
shifts and manage a household, Casa de la Mujer also provides psychological
and medical assistance.
The Casa’s roots trace back to 1985, when a small group of
women opened up a Tijuana home to provide support services to working
women. Over the years demand increased and the group evolved into
a registered non-profit organization. Today Casa de la Mujer operates
from a Tijuana office where seven women, two doctors, and a psychologist
dedicate themselves to offering “a meeting place for women
that provides information, training, skills development, and services…that
promote organization and the defense of human, labor, and gender
rights.”
To achieve its goals, the Casa trains promotoras, or community organizers,
to educate and organize women in their communities and work places.
Every year ten new women graduate from the 26-week Basic Course
for Promotoras. The course’s comprehensive curriculum is found
in the training manual, which covers human, labor, and gender rights,
class and gender identity, economic and political analysis, occupational
safety and hygiene, and Mexican labor legislation.
When the Casa set out to produce its third and most extensive version
of the training manual in 2000, it received a mini-grant from the
EECC. “The concrete support helped us to enrich the material,”
says Beatriz Alfaro Trujillo, coordinator of the training program
and member of the EECC. “We have been able to acquire new materials
that help us make the manual more interesting.”
The training manual serves as both a textbook and a teaching tool
for promotoras. After finishing the Basic Course, they each recruit
five new women and conduct a condensed six-week course in their
respective neighborhoods. Promotoras teach students to recognize
their rights, analyze workplace dangers, and skillfully demand proper
working conditions. The Casa encourages graduated promotoras to
attend quarterly reinforcement workshops that provide continuing
education and support.
“The promotoras are the ones who give life to this organization,”
Trujillo says. “Through training they become informed, and
then they inform others.”
Trujillo understands that Casa de la Mujer is a small organization
that cannot adequately meet the needs of workers in a city that
hosts more than 750 maquiladoras. National and international economic
policies continue to fuel Tijuana’s rampant growth, often at
the cost of a deteriorated quality of life for many local residents.
Challenging this system has been a slow and frustrating process.
Yet Trujillo knows that little by little, through persistence on
a community level, women are learning to demand the basic and decent
working conditions that they deserve.
“We are a small grain of sand in the defense of human rights
for these women, but every day we are more solid and more visible,”
she says. “When we working women have a greater awareness of
our strength, our actions to fight for a life with more dignity
will not be delayed any longer.”
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