22919: Arthur: Haiti Support Group: Grupo M workers receive damaging 'vaccinations' (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Charles Arthur <charlesarthur@hotmail.com>

Haiti Support Group press release - 5 August 2004


The Haiti Support Group is extremely concerned about the 'vaccinations'
given to workers at the Codevi free trade zone in Ouanaminthe, Haiti, in
March and April, 2004, which have, according to two recently issued reports,
resulted in miscarriages, stillbirths, and serious menstruation problems for
some women.

The two sets of injections administered by Grupo M staff, and which workers
were obliged to submit to for fear of losing of their jobs, were described
as tetanus shots. However, workers from the Grupo M factories who met with
an independent observers group in Ouanaminthe on 17 July 2004 reported
serious medical abnormalities in the aftermath of the second injection which
suggest that, unbeknown to them, the workers may have been administered
contraceptive injections.

This allegation appears to be confirmed by another report compiled by three
members of the Haitian Doctors' Union (L'Union des Medecins Haitiens) who
also visted Ouanaminthe in July. Their report details seven cases of workers
suffering serious medical complications - mostly miscarriages - after
receiving the 'vaccinations', and 20 other cases of workers suffering from a
variety of complaints, mostly involving severe menstrual problems.

One worker told the independent observers group that before the
'vaccinations' she would regularly menstruate on the 15th day of each month,
but that on 15 May she began bleeding and it continued for 22 days. She
avoided going to the clinic in the free trade zone and went to the State
Hospital in Ouanaminthe. She told the observers that when the doctor there
examined her, he asked her if she worked in the Codevi free trade zone. When
she replied that she did, the doctor told her that the workers there were
undergoing a "family planning regimen".

The Haiti Support Group can scarcely believe that Grupo M would administer
contraceptive shots under the guise of, or along with, tetanus shots,
without informing the recipients, but given the pattern of abuse of workers
over recent months we are inclined to believe the mounting evidence that
this is in fact what has happened.

Not only did Grupo M respond to the formation of a factory workers' union,
Sokowa, by calling in armed thugs to enforce the dismissal of 34 union
leaders on 1 March 2004, but in early June it brought Dominican soldiers
into the free trade zone to rough up and intimidate workers, prior to firing
over 370 workers, including nearly all known members of the Sokowa union. In
this context, we are obliged to contemplate that Grupo M cares so little
about its employees and so much about its profits that it would secretly
adminster birth control shots to stop female workers from becoming pregnant
and thus taking time off work.

Grupo M is receiving financial support for the Codevi free trade zone from
the World Bank's International Finance Corporation. Grupo M assembles jeans
for the well-known Levi Strauss & Co. The Haiti Support Group is calling on
both these powerful entities to demand an immediate explanation from Grupo M
as to what exactly the Codevi workers were injected with, and for an
immediate independent investigation of the allegations of serious violations
of the workers' rights, with a view to compensating the victims and
punishing Grupo M.


www.haitisupport:gn.apc.org

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