Women And Girls At Higher Risk from Toxic Industrial Chemicals

Written by Pamela Ferdinand on October 29, 2024. Posted in Current News

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 (U.N.) 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 U.N. 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 U.N.’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 one 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% 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:

• Adjust the evaluation and regulation of toxic substances to consider the impacts of chemical exposures over time.
• Assess the impacts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals from the petrochemical industry.
• Ban harmful chemicals versus removing pregnant or breastfeeding people from hazardous worksites.
• Ensure risk assessments of an industry, facility or chemical take into account the long-term health and financial impacts of preterm birth, low birth weight and other adverse birth outcomes.
• Make sure the results of all research funded by governments and international organizations address gender and sex differences, and include funding to explore the impact of toxic substances on gender-diverse people.

Only stronger national and international regulations can protect the environment and our bodies from gendered harms, especially in marginalized communities, the U.N. 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.”

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