Photo by Giles Clarke // In a 200-acre-plus dump 5 kilometers north of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, hundreds of men, women and children scavenge day and night through the burning wasteland for recycling plastics as well as clothing, household items and aluminum. Some 5,000 tons of waste is created each day in the Port-au-Prince area. Clarke spent a few days there in January 2015 documenting this toxic landscape.
Full report available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish below
Statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council available here
Everyone has the right to just and favourable conditions of work.[1]Every worker has a right to dignity, to be treated ethically, with respect and without being subjected to conditions of work that are dehumanizing or degrading. States have undertaken an ambitious goal under the Sustainable Development Goals: to ensure decent work for all by 2030.[2]
Despite clear obligations relating to the protection of workers’ health, workers around the world find themselves in the midst of a public health crisis due to their exposures to hazardous substances at work. While the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and others have called for action on this public health crisis for decades, the global problem of workers’ exposure to hazardous substances remains poorly addressed.
It is estimated that one worker dies every 30 seconds from toxic exposures at work,[3] while over 2,400,000 workers globally die from unsafe or unhealthy conditions of work each year.[4]
In his 2018 report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on toxics outlines several causes of that give rise to the exploitation of workers, and offers 15 Principles to help States, businesses and other key actors ensure decent work for all.
Read the full report on workers’ rights by the Special Rapporteur on toxics
In English
In Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish
[1] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 23.
[2] See ILO, “Decent work and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, 2 November 2017. United Nations human rights mechanisms define “decent work” as “work that respects the fundamental rights of the human person as well as the rights of workers in terms of conditions of work safety and remuneration”. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 18 (2005) on the right to work.
[3] Päivi Hämäläinen, Jukka Takala and Tan Boon Kiat, Global Estimates of Occupational Injuries and Work-related Illnesses 2017(Singapore, Workplace Safety and Health Institute).