Residents of 25 states and three other countries will take a stand against the sexual exploitation of farmworker women and other low-wage female immigrant workers in April as part of the "Bandana Project," a partnership between the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and community groups, universities and other advocacy organizations to raise awareness and educate these women about their rights.

In this study, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that Latinos are facing increasing hostility and discrimination as they fill low-wage jobs in Southern states that previously had few Latino residents. Based primarily on a survey of 500 low-income Latinos at five locations in the South, the report documented wage theft, racial profiling and other abuses driven by an anti-immigrant climate that harms all Latinos regardless of their immigration status.

A Latina factory worker in North Carolina was brutally assaulted by the plant manager after she had earlier reported his sexual harassment to officials of the yarn company that employed her, according to a federal court complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.