Julia Coburn on CDM and Mexican Migrant Workers

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Centro de los Derechos del Migrante  (CDM) is a workers’ organisation dedicated to the advancement of workers’ rights, in particular Mexican low-wage migrant workers who travel to the US for work. In this podcast, Julia Coburn, CDM's Director of Operations (Mexico), discusses with IHRB's Neill Wilkins one of CDM’s key initiatives, Contratados, a worker-facing workers’ rights information sharing platform for realtime anonymous reports of working conditions. 

Contratados allows workers to make informed decisions about migration.  The platform also connects workers with resources to remediate abuse, and provides opportunites for workers to engage in advocacy initiatives to advance workers rights.

Julia, CDM’s Director of Operations in Mexico, is a longtime CDM supporter.  She is a graduate student at the University for Peace in Costa Rica and a Founding Ally for Migrant Justice. After volunteering with CDM in Zacatecas during college, Julia returned as the 2009 University of Chicago Dr. Aizik Wolf Human Rights Post-Baccalaureate Fellow.  As a Fellow, Julia shaped the Justice in Recruitment program, designing research methods, conducting some of the first survey research on recruitment, and writing extensively about fraud and recruitment abuse. After her Fellowship ended, she moved to CDM’s Baltimore office, where she worked as a Program Associate. Since then, she has continued to support CDM.