Global

Every year in different regions of the world, poverty, lack of work and violence produce cross-border migrations of millions of people. For decades, these contexts of expulsion of migrants have increased with the structural increase in inequality, the deterioration of the living conditions of a large part of the population and the accumulation of wealth derived from neoliberal globalization.
International migrations imply spatial redistribution through different countries with large (…)

12 de octubre de 2017 - Americas Program - Low wages paid to Mexican workers continue to be a contentious issue as the three-way talks for a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) proceed.
In Mexico, many workers and their advocates had hoped that Pope Francisco’s visit to Ciudad Juarez back in February 2016 would bring about improvements for Mexican labor long before the NAFTA negotiators rolled up their sleeves. During his visit to the troubled border city and export production (…)

As of late human rights defenders call us domestic helpers, to lessen the blow, but call a spade a spade: we are maidservants, our function is to serve.
From there on, we can break down the gamut of abuses experienced for those of us who work in domestic service and maintenance. No matter the country, the reality of the servants is the same everywhere. We are not going to feign innocence, and to point an accusing finger at the United States as the cause of all our ills. In India, there are (…)

One of the monumental farces of world media coverage, in recent decades, has been the pervasive invention of a polarized war in Syria. One of so many lies, like that of a dictatorship in Venezuela with Chavez and Maduro, or Cuba with Fidel and Raúl. Like that of the dictator Gadhafi in Libya. Like the one who backed the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the one that hid the genocide in Rwanda.
The same media coverage that still continues to call Salvador Allende a dictator. The (…)

Every time we learn about unpleasant news (a rape, a femicide, a slaughter, and a terrorist act) our first and last reaction is to be shocked and remain in that condition, as if with that our share of social consciousness, as a demonstration of our collective commitment, would be fulfilled. With all the injustice and pain that through history has shattered this world, we continue to take refuge in our egotism. Until the pain does not touch us and tear our skin apart, we will continue to be (…)

The Olympic Games have been elitists since its inception. (Called Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC, To 393 AD) They were also exclusive to men, something that has been changing as the years go by and more women enter fields that, 120 years ago (at the beginning of the Modern Olympic Games) the world had ever imagined. By breaking paradigms, female gender has shown that there is nothing in the world that is the exclusivity of one gender only (except giving birth), as patriarchy intends us to (…)

When I lived in Guatemala I heard from a mother, referring to a young girl who worked in a bar (in Guatemala, nightclubs and canteens where sexual service is also offered are called bars, or brothels) waitressing and had had three children from different men -she was a single mom- “she’s there because she’s a whore and likes the cock”.
The other women taking part in the conversation, all mothers, married by the church and by all laws, seconded the comment and also railed against the girl, (…)

14 de julio de 2016 - Americas Program - Clayton Beverly is among teachers and activists who gathered last month outside the Mexican Consulate in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The protesters demanded a halt to government attacks against Mexican teachers, an immediate dialogue with the striking National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) and the release of jailed union leaders who are now “political prisoners in Mexico,” said Beverly, who is a member of the Albuquerque Caucus of Rank and File (…)

It is there, we see it every day, is rooted in parenting patterns, in the patriarchal system, in sociocultural factors: violence against women is real and it is also accepted as something natural to our misogynistic and sexist society. For gender violence there are no territorial boundaries nor social class differences, color, creed and level of education. It is imperceptible, because it is underhanded. It is a kind of violence that is practiced at all levels, it’s unlimited and (…)

Every time we learn about a terrorist attack in developed countries -according to the system- we feel this tragedy as ours, and it is not because of our human nature since it is clear that we are devoid of it. We react according to our double standards, racism and classism. The disavowal of what we are as a society. Mass reactions are alarming because of the false outrage. How many of us were Je Suis Charlie when 12 cartoonists were murdered in France? We were outraged and demanded that (…)