Migrating Towards Justice: Stories to Transform People and Policy

'For me, free trade agreements, neoliberal policies and the conditions on the aid from the international financial institutions have brought our country to extreme poverty. And the people, the rural farmers, are desperate and don't have any another alternative than to migrate to countries such as Costa Rica, Spain and the United States, with the only objective to work for their families. In my community, El Regadío, they installed a tobacco factory that is under the free trade zone, which generates employment, but the salaries are miserable and it is provoking a great contamination of our environment, principally to our water supply. It is also causing many diseases, of the skin and the organs of mainly women and children. The worst is that some farmers are selling their land to cultivate tobacco. This is causing less production of food, because the producers have dedicated their land to cultivating tobacco and this only serves to harm our health not to feed us.'- Augusto Obregon About the Lecturer: Augusto Obregon, community leader and activist of El Regadío, Estelí Nicaraguan