RIGHTS: Child Labour – Slow Progress, Right Direction

Encouraging statistics pointing to a decline in child labour do not conceal the fact that the problem remains a major challenge in large parts of the world, said the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on the World Day Against Child Labour.

HEALTH-LATIN AMERICA: The Challenge of Paying for Unremunerated Work

María Angélica is a Chilean woman who could not work in her profession as a chef for nearly two years, because she had to look after her mother, who was ill. Including this kind of unpaid women's work in national budgets is one of the big challenges Latin America faces in order to make progress in gender equality.

ARGENTINA: Women Air Society’s Dirty Laundry in Art Exhibit

A group of female prostitutes in Buenos Aires is using art to lay bare their situation - that is, the state and societal abuse they endure - to the public.

ARGENTINA: Fair Prices for Indigenous Crafts

"With this purchase, you are helping craftspeople feed their families, educate their children and stay on their land," says the label on products sold by the Silataj fair trade crafts association in Argentina, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

ARGENTINA: Transforming Garbage into Decent Jobs

The Argentine capital opened its first municipal plant for classifying solid waste - plastic, glass, paper, metal, cardboard and other materials - for recycling, as part of a project aimed at providing decent jobs for informal garbage collectors and reducing the amount of trash dumped into landfills.

LATIN AMERICA-EU: Fair Trade Fills Supermarket Shelves

Bananas from Ecuador, chocolate from Bolivia, coffee from Guatemala and Mexico, sugar from Nicaragua: agricultural products imported from Latin America are increasingly visible on supermarket shelves in the Austrian capital, where the heads of state and government of Europe and Latin America will meet on Friday.

LABOUR: Workers Will Suffer from Weakened Andean Community

Free trade agreements with the United States and Venezuela's announced withdrawal from the Andean Community trade bloc will have an impact on workers, the ‘Cinderella' of decades of integration, said trade unionists and experts in the region consulted by IPS.

LABOUR-BRAZIL: Slow Improvement for Domestic Workers

Most of them are women of African descent. They earn barely 35 percent of the average wage, and only one-third have a proper contract. But according to the latest statistics, domestic workers in Brazil today are slightly better off than they were a few years ago.

INT’L LABOUR DAY-SOUTH AMERICA: Unions Under Left-Leaning Governments

Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and to a lesser degree, Chile are governed by political forces that have affinity with trade unions, but the relationship between them so far has had contradictory and, frequently, negative outcomes, according to experts and labour leaders in all four countries.

INT’L LABOUR DAY: Portugal Opens Doors to East European Workers

Along with Spain and Finland, Portugal will open up its borders on May 1 to workers from the eight central and East European countries that joined the European Union (EU) two years ago.

LABOUR-ARGENTINA: Tragedy Spurs Action Against Slave Labour

Denunciations of sweatshops operating in the Argentine capital have piled up over the past few years in the city government and the courts. But not until six undocumented immigrants - including four children - died in a fire did the authorities announce measures to crack down on the network of clandestine textile factories that use slave labour.

ARGENTINA: Slave Labour Alive and Well

"They exploit us and threaten to hand us over to the police. When I was single I could claim my rights, but now with three children I have to accept the humiliation and submit to slavery," said José Orellana, a Bolivian immigrant who was able to escape with his family from a clandestine textile factory in Buenos Aires.

EDUCATION-LATIN AMERICA: To Ma’am With Love

The story of María Angélica Lizama, a 56-year-old teacher who works at two schools in the Chilean capital, is a litany of sacrifice and illness, like those of most of her fellow teachers in Latin America who pay for the educational system's deficiencies with their health.

AMERICAS: Counter-Summit Celebrates Rollback of US Influence

Activists taking part in this week's civil society gathering parallel to the fourth Summit of the Americas, which opens Friday in Argentina, are already celebrating what they see as a rolling back of U.S. influence over the hemispheric agenda.

AMERICAS: Differences on Free Trade Threaten Consensus at Summit

As this week's fourth Summit of the Americas looms, the divergence of the governments' positions on the issue of free trade is jeopardising the hoped-for consensus.

MEXICO: Social Security on the Verge of Collapse

The union of Mexico's Social Security Institute (IMSS) employees is involved in a battle with the government, legislators and business, defending the workers' labour benefits and right to early retirement with attractive pensions, even though these privileges are dragging the social security system down.

LABOUR-ARGENTINA: The ‘Black’ and ‘Grey’ Economy

In Argentina, nearly five million people work in the black economy, nearly double the proportion registered in the 1990s. That includes workers employed by the state in the "grey" economy.

LABOUR-BOLIVIA: Childhood in the Pits

He looks like he is around 60 years old, but he just turned 35. Valentín Condori was only 15 in 1985 when the Bolivian government closed the tin mines it owned and left him - and 30,000 other miners - without work.

LABOUR-LATIN AMERICA: Pretty Words, But Little Action

There is a general consensus in Latin America and the Caribbean that the state must play a role in creating jobs, and that trade liberalisation alone does not guarantee an increase in employment.

LABOUR-LATIN AMERICA: More Empty Promises?

Labour ministers from the Americas are meeting in Mexico Monday and Tuesday to issue ambitious-sounding policy proposals aimed at generating decent jobs - an exercise that has been repeated periodically for over a decade, without leading to major changes in Latin America and the Caribbean.

PARAGUAY: The Struggle Against Child Labour Is Just Beginning

Derlis's day begins at 5:00 AM, when his mother wakes him up to go to work. At the age of 12, he is one of the main breadwinners in his family, helping to support three younger siblings, ages 2, 7 and 9.