Stock market trading in water futures is the latest battleground in the defense of the fundamental right to water.

By working three jobs while in college and with some financial assistance from her mother, Karen Hawkins managed to pay off her undergraduate loans of US$12,000 eight years after completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

rtemis is now 60 years old and started working when she was a teenager. She has been in formal employment for 38 years, with a few brief interruptions, and is still working. Her salary is not as good as it used to be: she no longer receives basic benefits such as medical care, and her chances of retiring are zero, due to the peculiarities of Mexico’s legislation.