Environmental Health Injustice Analysis

751 Words4 Pages

“Maquiladoras”: Environmental Health Injustice in the U.S-Mexico Border in the Last Decade Social injustice refers to a social unequal distribution of the environmental risks. In our U.S-Mexico region we can find many of them; poor communities, environmental hazards, high rates of chronic diseases and lack of affordable care. All of them coexist and make our border region a big environmental health injustice. Our region is also suffering from a big problem of structural violence which is a term use to describe a form of violence where some social structure may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. In this case, such structural violence is reflected in the poverty, marginalization and unhealthy situation of factory …show more content…

This is due to the industrial parks that predominate in the borderland (Carruthers, 2008, p. 557). Due to the many environmental injustices the emerging of environmental justice appeared in the 80’s as a fueling popular resistance against the industrial and toxic hazards concentrated in the … communities (p. 556). Environmental justice emerged as an important movement, discourse, and frameworks for analysis in many corners of the world, including Mexico [region] (p. 565). As we all know, every action has its counterpart or consequence in this case the appearance of the environmental justice emerged in all its splendor. Environmental Justice refer to the equal treatment of people, no matter their color, culture, income, origin, or educational degree, in regard of the development, implementation, and enforcement of protective environmental laws, regulations, and policies (Environmental Justice, 2014, …show more content…

it is know that not all contamination and environmental hazards are result of the maquiladoras nonetheless, the industrial chemicals use by these factories are great health threats for public health and noticeably for their workers. Several studies has been done in regards of this situation. Such problems seems to be due to the lack of resource that Mexico has for enforcement and not to the lack of policies or laws being that Mexicans environmental laws are much the same than those we have here at the US (Williams & Homedes, 2001, p.