Movimiento de Mujeres Trabajadoras y Desempleadas ‘Maria Elena Cuadra’ (MEC)
MEC has worked since 1993 with women workers in many different sectors (workers in the garments-for-export processing industry, domestic workers, tobacco workers, miners, informal-sector workers, small/micro businesswomen, women without paid employment), raising awareness of their rights and carrying out advocacy and campaigning work. It has a membership of approx. 30,000 women workers from these sectors.
Since 2005 CAWN has supported MEC’s economic literacy campaing through the project: Promoting civil and economic rights of Nicaraguan women (2005 – 2008).
The project focuses on economic literacy and aims to use this to strengthen the capacity of poor women in Nicaragua to influence and participate actively in the formulation of gender-sensitive economic policies at the local, national and regional levels.
The project aims to enhance the economic and social status of women and contribute to transforming political and public culture by raising awareness of women’s demands for economic and trade policies that promote gender equity. These are achieved by raising women’s own awareness of their rights as enshrined in the Nicaraguan Constitution and international conventions and agreements (such as, CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, the Millennium Development Goals and relevant International Labour Organisation Conventions) and providing them with the tools to analyse how these rights will be affected by government trade and investment plans, such as the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the forthcoming phasing out of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA). Both these plans have been developed without the meaningful participation of women and are likely to lead to increased poverty and a further deterioration in the position and condition of women.
MEC, CAWN’s local partner, will play a key role by providing training in economic literacy, leadership and advocacy for the primary stakeholders in order to enhance their capacity to participate effectively in policy processes at the local, national and regional levels, aimed at defending their economic interests. Policy proposals formulated and presented by MEC will be informed by the results of broad-based consultations and monitoring of the impact of economic and trade policies on poor women in the project intervention areas.