This project will enhance the effectiveness of the Government of Mexico to combat child labor and forced labor at the federal level and support specific interventions in the southern states of Chiapas, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. The duration of the project will be five years (60 months).

The Sustentar project aims to increase private sector stakeholders’ accountability to uphold core labor standards consistent with Mexican labor laws and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s (USMCA) Labor Chapter, with a specific focus on addressing child labor, forced labor, and acceptable conditions of work.  The project will include a focus on states that produce chile peppers and tomatoes, including Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Chihuahua.

The project will work with civil society and workers' organizations in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to strengthen their capacity and bolster their collaboration with government agencies, the private sector and other stakeholders to protect labor rights and reduce child labor and forced labor. The project will focus on organizations that represent indigenous, Afro-descendant, and Garifuna populations, while promoting gender and racial equity.

The project aims to build the capacity of civil society organizations around the world to advance the fight against child labor by raising the voices of workers, advocates, and other civil society representatives.

The Mexico Awareness Raising project aims to support the government of Mexico, including the federal and state-level Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, to design, execute, and sustain effective communication strategies that inform workers, unions, and employers of the legal ramifications of the country’s labor law reforms.

Part of the broader Vision Zero Fund - which aims to promote worker safety and health in global supply chains – this project aims to improve the occupational safety and health of workers in selected supply chains with a focus on COVID-19, female workers, and workers in vulnerable conditions. This project also helps Mexico meet its labor obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

To build the capacity of workers, support worker engagement and organizing, and strengthen democratic worker organizations in the aerospace, mining, and call center industries, such that they become protagonists in fulfilling the potential of Mexico’s historic labor reform. The project will offer workers and their organizations expert technical assistance, ongoing skills development, and pro bono advisory and legal services. Additionally, the project will create spaces for analysis, exchange, reflection, and the development of recommendations to improve labor law reform implementation.

The project aims to improve compliance with national laws related to internationally recognized labor rights in the port sector. These include, but are not limited to, the right to freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, prohibition against discrimination at work, elimination of forced labor and child labor, and rights to acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health.

The Mexico Auto Employers project aims to bring automotive sector employers into compliance with the country’s labor law reforms while improving working conditions in the automotive supply sector. The project strives to reach this goal by raising awareness of the labor reforms, supporting employers to implement relevant provisions and proactively adopt policies for compliance, and strengthening industrial relations between employers and workers.

This project aims to promote increased use of forced labor research in policy and programmatic decision-making to help eliminate forced labor around the world. The project will achieve this by increasing knowledge through robust research on forced labor in the textile and garment sector and engaging decision makers and stakeholders to use this knowledge to take actions against forced labor.