Quintero-Ramírez, Cirila

The North American Free Trade Agreement and Women: The Canadian and Mexican Experiences

This article assesses the impact of NAFTA on women workers, focusing on the garment industry in Ontario, Canada, and the maquiladoras industry in Mexico. The author traces the restructuring of the textile and manufacturing industry in Canada as a result of NAFTA and discusses how this has led to job reductions, depressed wages and working conditions for women. She then reviews policies adopted by the Mexican government aimed at inserting Mexico into the global economy and the resulting shifts in labour patterns within the maquiladoras in terms of both work structure and gender composition.

HIV/AIDS on Rise for Canadian Women: Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support Programs and Policies do not Address Needs of Girls and Women

The focus of this article is the increasing rate of HIV/AIDS infection amongst Canadian women. The author points to a number of factors that put women at greater risk for contracting HIV, including an increased physical susceptibility to infection as well as social or cultural factors that may limit a women's ability to choose safe sex practices. The author describes how Canadian women infected with HIV face a lower survival rate due a decreased likelihood of receiving proper diagnoses and inadequate access to healthcare, amongst other reasons.