The young woman worker leaves home at four o’clock in the morning every day. She has to cross the whole city to get to work.
She travels around two hours by bus, and then she has to walk almost half an hour to reach the community where she teaches children of low-income families. The neighborhood where she works is poor, marginalized, and the rates of violence are high.
Women have been raped on the stretch of road she has to walk through, and the buses she uses to get to and leave that place are those which, according national statistics, register the most armed attacks and assaults, as well as the most accidents caused by the drivers themselves.
She has to make the same trip in the other direction to go home, but this time, in even worse conditions: in buses that are overcrowded, progressing very slowly in long lines of cars driving through the city.
A little girl is waiting for her
Tired after a hard day’s work, the other part of her long day expects her at home, hours that are not taken into account by her bosses or by society in general… This young teacher has to prepare her classes for the next day, all the school material she will use, the homework for her pupils. This takes time.
But at home, another woman is waiting for her… a little girl who is only one year old, a child who needs attention, who wants her mother to take care of
her. In addition, the young woman has to do household chores, the cooking, the washing…
She works around seventeen hours every day, but even the State does not recognize her efforts. Instead, it insists on cultivating the flexibility of the workforce, and with it, the exploitation of the Guatemalan people and the worsening of working conditions. The young woman has a temporary contract and her rights are therefore limited.
Fighting injustice and social inequalities
The testimony of this young woman worker is a clear illustration of the neoliberal policies that are implemented in the country. The Ministry of Education rather hires temporary teachers than teachers who would fully enjoy their labor rights.
The bad working conditions of this young woman are an incentive for the organization and struggle for a change in the reality. Just like her, many brave women are fighting injustice and social inequalities, women who deserve to be recognized, not only for the things they say, but for their living conditions and their political stand in the struggle for decent work for all.
United to urge the State to create fair and decent working conditions!
Because a young worker is worth more than all the gold in the world.
The Guatemala YCW
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