By Raúl Gutiérrez

Central America has become the world's most dangerous region for trade unionists, due to the increase in threats, torture, disappearances and murders, says a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

These practices, absent from the region for a time, have reappeared, trampling on the rights of organised workers, the report indicates.

Wal-Mart is among five companies spotlighted for their opposition to workers joining or forming trade unions around the world.

On the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labor Rights Forum has released “Working for Scrooge - 5 worst companies for the right to associate”.

The five are:

* Wal-Mart - for violating worker rights in the USA, Canada and elsewhere.

* Nestle - for violations in the Philippines, Colombia, Peru, Russia and Pakistan.

The surgical instrument manufacturing industry of Sialkot in Pakistan makes scalpels, scissors and other items for buyers all over the world – including Britain's NHS. Photograph: BMA Medical Fair and Ethical Trade Group

British hospitals are buying surgical instruments produced in dangerous working conditions in Pakistan using child workers as young as eight, the NHS has admitted. In some workshops, products such as scalpels, clamps and scissors to be used in NHS operations are made by workers paid as little as 170 rupees (£1.40) a day.

NYSUT and the state Labor-Religion Coalition are sounding the alarm over a recent report that links a popular school-uniform clothing line sold at Wal-Mart to a Bangladeshi factory that forces its workers to labor in extreme sweatshop conditions.

The JMS Garments Factory in Chittagong, Bangladesh, produces school uniforms sold under the brand name "Faded Glory" school wear.

A report by SweatFree Communities — an anti-sweatshop group based in Bangor, Maine — says JMS is home to some of the world's worst working conditions...