Chlorine attacks and daily harassment: why Mexico’s female delivery drivers are organising

Food delivery worker Berline Augustin, who is originally from Haiti, had chlorine thrown at her by a fellow driver. Photograph: Bex Griffin/The Guardian

It was 10am in Mexico City on 24 February this year, and the heat from the morning sun was beginning to impose itself on the sprawling capital.

Berline Augustin, a food delivery driver originally from Haiti, had driven for more than an hour from her home in the outskirts of the capital to the fashionable barrio of Roma Norte, where there is plenty of food to be delivered to the affluent. She was waiting to get an order, when a fellow repartidor pulled up alongside and threw chlorine at her.