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122 Cannon House Office Building
 
The International Workers Rights Caucus presents a Mother’s Day/ International Labor Day  Briefing on Working Women in Global Export Industries that will highlight the discrimination and worker rights abuses encountered by women workers around the world producing goods for the US market.
 
Current US trade and development policies push developing countries toward export-led growth.  Unskilled female workers have entered export-processing industries throughout the developing world in vast numbers. Women overwhelmingly occupy the lowest paid, most unstable jobs such as manufacturing garments and harvesting agricultural goods.  Despite generous US aid and market access to stimulate these sectors, these jobs in developing nations often fail to support a decent way of life for women and their families.

Two women workers from Pakistan and Bangladesh, and a labor rights activist from Ecuador, will describe the challenges they face in their fight to improve working conditions in garments, sporting goods and cut flowers for the US market. 
 
Kalpona Akter, a former child factory worker, now works with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity which was established in 2000 by garment workers struggling for their rights. The Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity works for the empowerment of working women, the rights of children, and the security of working families and communities.

Zehra Bano is the General Secretary of the Home-Based Women Workers Federation of Pakistan. Zehra has been an outspoken leader in the fight for recognition of workers’ rights for women in Pakistan.  Zehra has first-hand knowledge of the plight of soccer ball workers especially related to home-based and stitching center workers.

Cesar Estacio is the President of the Foundation for Sustainable Social Development (FUNDESS) in Ecuador.  Cesar is a former flower worker who was fired after organizing a union at his company and blacklisted by the flower plantations in the Cayambe region.  FUNDESS is a non-governmental organization founded in 2000 to promote the human rights and labor rights of flower workers, and local environmental conservation in Ecuador.