US Department of Labor awards $10M to promote gender equity, reduce workplace discrimination, harassment in Mexico

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the award of a $10 million cooperative agreement to Partners of the Americas to strengthen gender equity efforts in Mexico and reduce workplace discrimination and harassment.

Labor law reforms enacted in Mexico in 2019 and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement include gender provisions that seek to prevent workplace discrimination and violence. Implementation of these provisions continues to be difficult.

Administered by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, this project will work with multiple stakeholders to advance the gender equity goals of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The organization will support actions to increase the number of women in leadership positions in Mexico’s unions, better protect them from workplace discrimination and harassment, and raise wages to achieve equity.

The project will also build the capacity of worker organizations to advance issues of gender equity in their own institutions, including ensuring that gender in leadership is proportioned properly. It will also undertake actions that promote gender equity in the workplace with employers, such as through collective bargaining.

Learn more about the department’s international work.

Founded in 1964 under President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress, Partners of the Americas has more than 57 years of experience implementing U.S government-funded development programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, including more than 18 consecutive years implementing department-funded projects to combat child labor, forced labor and human trafficking.