19
maquiladora zones of those states, demanding an end to employment-related pregnancy
screening.
43
In August 1996, HRW released a report
44
confirming that many companies in the
maquiladora zones required pregnancy exams prior to hiring as proof that women are not
pregnant. Others required exams throughout a woman’s employment; if a worker was
found to be pregnant, she was moved to more physically taxing job within the factory or
to a night shift, in an effort to force her to voluntarily resign for her own safety/comfort.
And women were fired outright for being pregnant – though the reason for dismissal was
often stated differently in official paperwork related to the firing.
As an appendix to the 1996 report, Human Rights Watch published samples of its
letters to US-based companies with manufacturing operations in the maquiladora zones
(among them, Sanyo, Zenith, and Carlisle Plastics) along with their responses. The report
urged the Government of Mexico to uphold its obligations under the Mexican
Constitution, various United Nations human rights treaties, ILO conventions, and the
NAFTA side accord on labor.
45
It called upon the US Government to exercise political
pressure on Mexico to do so, and urged corporations to end pregnancy-related
employment discrimination.
Backdoor moves during Phase I. Mexican organizations along the Northern
border provided Human Rights Watch with invaluable assistance in producing both its
1996 and 1998 reports. Members of local groups made introductions to people in border
communities. They guided HRW staff around the remote neighborhoods where
maquiladora workers lived and arranged interviews with women in homes and outside
factories. They provided background information on local governmental institutions and
political figures. And they distributed the finished Human Rights Watch reports to other
social justice organizations in the border region.
Human Rights Watch staff has acknowledged that local Mexican groups did not
propose the idea of a campaign against pregnancy discrimination. Adequate wages,
housing, and safe transit to and from work are among the chief concerns most often cited
by women who work in Mexico’s maquiladoras – but these issues do not fall within the
43
Many of the corporations that Human Rights Watch wrote to replied that the organization had contacted
them so late in its investigation (i.e., less than a month before the release of its report) that it could not have
expected a reasonable reply. The bulk of responses either denied or sought to justify employment-related
pregnancy screening. See Human Rights Watch, No Guarantees: Sex Discrimination in Mexico’s
Maquiladora Sector (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996), 45-54.
44
HRW No Guarantees, 45-54.
45
Among others, Mexico has ratified: the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Cov enant on
Economic Social and Cultural Rights; ILO Convention 111 on Discrimination; and the American
Convention on Human Rights.
Convention