A panel of University of Miami academics warned Monday that a proposed hemisphere-wide free trade agreement could be harmful for Latin American women because they could end up working in miserable conditions and for minimum pay.
Speaking at a panel titled ''Gender Identity and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA),'' UM Department of Foreign Languages Professor Lilian Manzor claimed that the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement made things worse for women, and that the planned FTAA -- scheduled to be negotiated by 2005 -- will be no better.
According to Jennifer Mandel, a UM professor of geography and regional studies, multinational corporations prefer female workers at Latin American manufacturing plants, because they are willing to work for less, and ''are regarded as more docile.'' This, in turn, produces greater male unemployment, leading to greater alcoholism and domestic violence.
''Free trade and globalization may have given women more autonomy, but they have led to the feminization of poverty and labor,'' Mandel said.
Supporters of free trade say that minimum pay jobs are better than no jobs at all. They add that Mexico has tripled its exports since the 1994 free trade agreement, and that Latin America as a whole would benefit from a hemispheric agreement that would give countries greater access to the U.S. market.
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