A new code of conduct designed to curb sweatshop abuses by apparel manufacturers includes a prohibition on using workers younger than 15. Yet for Myra Esperanza Mejia, who started working at 13, loss of her job would have left her family without shelter or food. Her biggest complaint is that young people under 15 get less pay than older women even though they work just as hard. PNS associate editor Mary Jo McConahay compiled the following essay from three lengthy conversations with Myra Esperanza Mejia, a 15-year-old seamstress in Guatelama City. PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH PNS.

GUATEMALA CITY -- I know what it is like to work. I began filling bottles at the shampoo factory when I was 13, and I am 15 now with a better job in a maquila -- we make pants and dresses to send to the United States. It can be pretty hard, but I say it is better because I make more money.

Until I was 12, I went to school and played like other kids, and helped around the house. Fetching water, keeping my younger brother and sister away from the cooking fire, sweeping the dirt floor smooth; that was the work I knew.

We lived on the railroad tracks with hundreds of other families, the ones they call squatters, until the municipality decided we had to disappear, and relocated us. My mother had to pay $41 for the lot and buy sheets of corrugated aluminum to make a shelter. My father had left long before, and she couldn't earn enough for all that from selling tortillas and corn mush outside the house, especially in the rainy season when people just rush by. What could I do but go out to work to help, even a little?

Because I am underage, most people don't want to hire me, so I have to look for work where they don't care about that, like the shampoo factory or the maquila. And they are right to hire me, because I need a job and I do my job as well as older people.

At the shampoo factory, I moved up fast even though I was small. Soon I was filling single-use packets, which is hard because they are just little plastic bubbles. Then the supervisor put me in charge of watching that labels were on the bottles straight, because I have a good eye. But still I was bringing in only $40 every two weeks, while others doing the same work got to sit on chairs and took home $70 or $80. I knew they had been there longer and were older women -- 17 or 18, some with children of their own -- yet it didn't feel fair. But when you're 13 you don't complain much.

Now I make at least $60 every two weeks, up to $66. I give my mother all but about $8, and buy shoes or something else just for myself. This work is not easy, but I keep my mouth shut even though I'm older and have more experience now, because I need this job. If they close the maquilas, like they threaten to sometimes -- to scare us, I think -- I would have a problem.

The starting bell rings at 6:15 and I can feel pretty tired the first hour, but I have to work fast anyway -- we have quotas. I cut fabric into shapes for the pants leg. I can cut fabric for about 20 pairs of pants in an hour.

When the lunch bell rings at 12, you have to hope the cook is clean, and the food is hot, and you can eat it, because the doors are locked and you are not allowed to leave. And you have to hope it doesn't make you want to go to the bathroom, because if you ask permission more than a couple of times a day, you get reprimanded. There are no morning or afternoon breaks.

When the bell finally rings at 6:30 p.m., you are ready to go home -- but it is not always possible. If there is more work, the owners tell you they need people to stay for the night shift. If not enough people say yes, the supervisor sits in front of the doors and no one can leave.

The first time this happened, I said, "My mother will be worried sick if I don't come home -- let me tell her and I'll come back." They said, "No -- you won't come back."

They let you rest a few minutes, or use the bathroom, and start work at 7:00 p.m. again. When the bell rings at 3 a.m., they pass out cardboard from old boxes. I look for my friends, and we put our cardboards next to each other and sleep under the tables. Then you go back to work whether you're tired or not. This happens two or three times a week.

Do you think I would do this if we didn't need the money? I liked school. I would like to be a bilingual secretary, sit in front of a computer, answer telephones and say, "Just a moment, please, I'll see if he is in."

If I didn't need to work, I would be in school. I know where my father lives and I have told him he should give me money -- he paints houses and he could help, but he says no because I am working now.

What I really don't like about this job is it makes it difficult to have friends. But I do. One girl is teaching me to use the overstitch machine, a few minutes here and there during our lunch break. She could never teach me during work time because the supervisor slaps you in the face if she sees you talking. She hasn't slapped me yet, but she hits the girl next to me.

I don't have a boyfriend, even though I am 15. The maquila is not a great place to meet them. Most of the men use abusive language. A week ago a boy who is almost 18 and doesn't curse invited me to a family party for his sister's birthday at his evangelical church. We'll see if my mother gives me permission.

When I was younger, I liked basketball and running around the square and visiting my cousins. Now there is no time. I am tired a lot. I don't play much any more.