Governments must act to protect women, girls from toxic chemicals, UN expert warns

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Women and girls are more likely to be exposed and harmed by toxic chemicals. (Photo credit: PeopleImages)

Exposure to dangerous chemicals disproportionately impacts the health of women and girls worldwide, creating a human rights crisis that demands government intervention, says a United Nations report.

Hazardous chemicals—often from petrochemical, extractive, and agricultural industries—have been shown to cause cancers, infertility, miscarriage, endometriosis,  disability, and developmental and metabolic disorders, among other health conditions. They can also lead to death.

“The failure to address environmental violence from toxics is reminiscent of past and current failures of governments to stop actors that attempt to control women’s and girls’ bodies,” says the report, presented Friday by Dr. Marcos A. Orellana to the UN General Assembly. “Chemicals can no longer be a fringe issue in women’s rights or sexual and reproductive health and rights.”

An expert in international law and the law on human rights and the environment, Orellana serves as the UN’s Special Rapporteur (independent expert) on toxics and human rights. Exposure to a range of harmful substances without informed consent is widely considered a human rights issue.

‘Alarming’ science warns about chemicals

Women and girls are more likely to be affected by certain toxic chemicals such as glyphosate and atrazine partly because their bodies react differently than male bodies, the report says. Females experience greater vulnerability to environmental exposures during menstruation, pregnancy, and childhood. Reproductive harms usually are not included in environmental assessments for new industry, the report says.

Women and girls are also more likely to encounter multiple toxins at work and home—for instance, using cleaning, medical, beauty, and personal care products that contain dangerous ingredients. 

Females often have less decision-making influence in highly toxic industries, such as fossil fuels, the report says. And with 1 in every 10 women in the world living in extreme poverty, they may not have the resources, knowledge or power to protect themselves from exposure. (Poor and marginalized males also are leveraged to perform dangerous work with hazardous substances, and no complaints, the report notes.) 

Consider: In countries such as Indonesia and Kenya, female workers in the waste management sector are heavily exposed to dioxins and furans (chemical byproducts that can cause severe hormonal problems) emitted from burning waste. Women also make up roughly 60 to 70 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries like Zambia, where pesticides and pesticide handling are poorly regulated.

Stricter laws are needed to protect health

To improve maternal and newborn health outcomes and protect lifelong health, the report says governments should actively consult with women and children from communities most affected by regulatory decisions.

Other recommendations include:

Only stronger national and international regulations can protect the environment and our bodies from gendered harms, especially in marginalized communities, the UN report says. Stronger regulations would also prevent future damage from toxins, the report says.

“Harm not only reaches through the pregnant person to the child and across the child’s life course but can also reach across generations, undermining the health of grandchildren before their parent has even been born.”

References

Report of the Special Rapporteur, United Nations General Assembly. “Implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes.”