Cheap labor is what enables America and other countries involved in international trade to obtain cheap goods. These cheap goods are part of system exploiting people. This cheap labor is enabling poor working conditions and people struggling to provide for themselves and their families. The main argument involving Mexico’s “maquiladoras (assembly plants that produce exported goods)”(185) has been involving whether these jobs are empowering woman who would otherwise not have a job in the formal sector or harming them not only physically and economically but also harming their sense of self-worth. A paper entitled “Woman Workers in the Maquiladoras and the Debate on Global Labor Standards” argues that these maquila jobs don’t have nearly enough benefit to be worthwhile to the workers and force woman to confine to gender roles. This paper is correct in stating the working conditions and…show more content… A policy will most likely not be effective enough to change the working condition; the workers at the maquiladoras need to be educated about their rights in order to take action. The debate involving the maquiladoras system is mainly focused on woman because a majority of the workers are woman and the majority of woman in Mexico and Central America work in maquiladoras. It is estimated that “in the mid-1990s, women represented about 78 percent of all maquila workers and 87 percent of all women in the labor force, and in 2008, around 80 percent of women in the labor force” (188). If woman in Mexico want job they tend to go to the maquiladoras in order to have steady paycheck. The companies hire them because they are perceived as “docile” and