ZENAYDA TORRES IS one of millions of people who have been denied their economic human rights. In 1995, when she was nineteen years old, she went to work in a clothesmaking factory outside of the Central American city of Managua, Nicaragua. She later recalled:

The working conditions there were very hard. We worked from 7 am until 7 or 9 at night. Sometimes, when there was an urgent order, they made us work 24 hours straight. We worked weekends, often with no rest day. . . . Often, they wouldn't give you permission to go to the bathroom when you had to go; they would only let you go two or at most three times a day.

Although she worked long hours under these difficult conditions, Torres was barely able to make enough money to live. She explained:

We have a base wage of...