Health, Safety and Environment - International Labour Organization

Manual 4:HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT FACT SHEETSFact Sheet 12: Health and safety andwomen workers BackgroundWhy healthand safetyand womenworkers?HazardsIt is important to look at the question of women’s occupational health andsafety for a number of reasons: much less is known about the risks that women facein agriculture, many women are employed in precarious types ofemployment without adequate protection from the law or collectivebargaining agreementslegislation makes no distinction between women’s and men’s jobs, andmany norms have been developed by men for menthere are physical differences between men and women, that have animpact in the workplacemost women have the major responsibility for unpaid work in the home,in addition to the paid shift in the workplaceAccording to figures produced by the International Labour Organisation,500 people die every day from work-related accidents or diseases. Thereare 270 million accidents, and 160 million cases of work-related diseases.Although the gender breakdown is unknown, women continue to suffer dueto: stress manual handling repetitive strain injuries (RSI) violence and sexual harassment at workRecently, US trade unionists organising strawberry pickers in Californianoted that owing to their exposure to pesticides, women are faced with: the risk of giving birth to disabled children miscarriages becoming sterile developing breast cancerThe Inter Press Service agency says that research has repeatedly provedthat chemical substances and other toxins in the environment have aparticularly devastating effect on women’s health.164 Health, Safety and EnvironmentA Series of Trade Union EducationManuals for Agricultural Workers