Recorded November 21, 2003
Below is the original description of the event.
Juliana So of the Chinese Working Women Network and Garrett Brown of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network will describe the impact of economic globalization on the lives of young women workers in the maquiladoras of Mexico and Central America and in the giant export factories of southern China. Accompanying the talks will be a slide show of photographs taken inside several sports shoe and garment factories in China and Guatemala run by Korean and Taiwanese contractors for “name brand” transnationals producing shoes and garments of the U.S. market.
Juliana So is Project Coordinator for the Chinese Working Women network and coordinates the independent non-governmental organization’s activities in southern China. These include an office and social center for young migrant workers in Nansham; a mobile van providing information on worker health issues which visits four industrial towns in the Pearl River Delta; and a workers information center attached to the main occupational disease hospital in Guangzhou, China.
Garrett Brown is Coordinator of the Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network, a volunteer network of 400 occupational health professionals in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. The MHSSN has been providing information, technical assistance and Spanish-language trainings to maquila workers and their community-based organizations on the U.S.–Mexico border since 1993.