Waste Pickers and Human Rights in Latin America

This edition of Law & Informality Insights describes WIEGO’s strategies to articulate the working conditions of waste pickers as human rights violations and to draw to this the attention of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the highest forum on human rights protection in the Americas. WIEGO’s “Protection of Human Rights of Waste Pickers in Latin America” project culminated in a July 2023 public hearing in the IACHR’s 187th Period of Sessions – and in the six years leading up to this, many lessons were learned and unexpected gains were made. We offer these insights as a source of learning for other movements and occupational groups.