Human Rights NICARAGUA

Nicaragua
In a joint report to the CEDAW Committee, FIDH and the Centre Nicaraguense de Derechos Humanos (CENIDH) raised the critical issue of women working in appalling conditions in the maquilas (assembly line factories) situated in the free-trade zones.
 Tax exemption in the free-trade zones is accompanied by flagrant breaches of the basic rights of employees, in violation of Nicaragua’s obligations under international law as well as provisions of national legislation.

FIDH and 18 Nicaraguan human rights organisations also submitted two joint letters to the experts of the CEDAW Committee, focusing on violations of sexual and reproductive rights

The Committee’s experts raised these concerns with the Nicaragua delegation, asking for details on the measures taken to address these issues. In response, the delegation recognized that the salaries in maquilas were too low and that the Government was not effectively regulating activities in the free-trade zones. The delegation stated that free trade zones were a palliative to the economic crisis, but accepted that the economic crisis cannot justify, nor be resolved, through jobs that fail to satisfy minimum needs and assured the Committee that a legislative framework on the maquilas was “underway”.
The racist belief that ethnic, cultural, and biological differences should imply social

and political inferiority is expressed in terms of discrimination, depriving people of their

human rights—which are by definition universal, inherent, and everlasting. In the case of

Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendent groups in Nicaragua, it also results in the denial

of their collective rights. Discrimination is the act through which one social group is

deprived of the rights that are enjoyed by other groups.2 Ethnic and racial discrimination

have been classified as legal, interpersonal, institutional, structural, and oral.

For Nicaragua, the fact that the conference was held here was the most important factor. There have been many accusations abroad of human rights violations and also many attempts to use the problems of the indigenous and Black populations on the Atlantic Coast to increase the problems faced by the Government in implementing the goals of the revolution. Thus, this seminar was an opportunity for people from all over the world to come to Nicaragua and see for themselves what the conditions are. Many of the delegates said they had been quite apprehensive about coming here because of reports that they had read in the news media about conditions here. Some governments, including the United States, cautioned people against coming. Many of the delegates as well as many of the UN personnel who were helping with the seminar, publicly expressed their anger at the distortions of the Nicaraguan reality in the exterior.