Farm Labor, Reproductive Justice: Migrant Women Farmworkers in the US
Galarneau Charlene Galarneau, PhD, AM, MAR, is Assistant Farm labor, reproductive justice: Professor in the Women’s and Migrant women farmworkers in the US Gender Studies Department at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Charlene Galarneau MA, USA. Abstract Please address correspon- dence to the author, at: Little is known about the reproductive health of women migrant farmworkers in the Women’s and Gender Studies US. The health and rights of these workers are advanced by fundamental human Department, 106 Central rights principles that are sometimes conceptually and operationally siloed into three Street, Wellesley College, approaches: reproductive health, reproductive rights, and reproductive justice. I focus Wellesley, MA, USA 02481, on the latter framework, as it lends critical attention to the structural oppression email: cgalarne@wellesley. central to poor reproductive health, as well as to the agency of communities organiz- edu. ing and leading efforts to improve their health. I review what is known about these women’s reproductive health; identify three realms of reproduction oppression affecting Competing interests: None their reproductive health: labor/occupational conditions, health care, and social rela- declared. tions involving race, immigration and fertility; and then highlight some current efforts at women farmworker-directed change. Finally, I make several analytical observations Copyright © 2013 Galarneau. that suggest the importance of the reproductive justice framework to broader discus- This is an open access article sions of migrant worker justice and its role in realizing their right to health. distributed under the terms of the Creative Common Introduction Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecom- Summer 1978 in rural Colorado: Luz was 14 years old, working in the melon mons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), fields, and pregnant.
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