The Asociación Aurora Vivar has been working for 22 years to promote and defend the rights of women workers. The organization’s activities include awareness-raising, trainings, organization, advising and promoting organizational processes from a gendered perspective within unions, and advocating for new labor policies and norms.
In recent years, with the onset of economic globalization and trade liberalization, Aurora Vivar has been focusing on strengthening the capacity of women workers in the non-traditional agro-export industry to advocate for their rights and protest workplace violations. Aurora Vivar has done this successful through training programs on topics like political advocacy, gender, leadership, and economic/social/cultural rights. Through a participatory process, Aurora Vivar has collaborated with women workers to develop an Agenda of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights which incorporates their proposals and demands, in the following thematic areas: Health and Safety in the Workplace;, Social Security; Equal Opportunities; Labor Rights; Sexual Harassment; and Labor Inspections. This agenda has served as a basis for developing newly proposed legislation, policy, workplace regulations and a series of campaigns and labor related complaints filed to protest existing labor laws. The organization has focused specifically on documenting the persistent violation of maternity rights in the economic sectors favored by free trade, and has been working to advance workers’ rights through grassroots initiatives, political lobbying, and through meetings with Congressional representatives of Peru and political groups such as Unión por el Perú with Congresswoman Marisol Espinosa and Gloria Ramos. Aurora Vivar has produced and distributed information on the subject of women in the agro-exportation sector, and published a report titled “Maternity and the Labor Market in Agro-exportation,” which consolidated research on statutes that protect maternity rights. Two bulletins titled “Labor Panorama of Agro-exportation in Peru” were also produced, in both electronic and print form, and these documents serve as source of information for those working on labor rights issues. In addition, Aurora Vivar has been able to promote awareness of labor violations in Peru’s non-traditional agro-export industry through a conference titled, “Public Audience: Maternity and Labor Market in the Agroindustry” and through a coordinated political march on the Day to End Violence against Women last year.
Aurora Vivar has also worked with other NGOs to create the first National Tribunal for the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of Women and represented important cases therein. Together with unions, the ILO, and other institutions, the organization has also coordinated forums to raise awareness about the free trade agreement and agro industry in Ica and La Libertad. Amongst other things, Aurora Vivar has also signed an agreement on inter-institutional cooperation with the General Workers Confederation of Peru, and pushed for state ratification of the 183 Convention on Maternity Protection and the revision of the provision on parental leave in Convention No. 156 on workers with familial obligations.