Strengthen regulation of hazardous chemicals to stop gender-related health harms from toxic exposure: UN expert

NEW YORK  – States must prevent gendered injustices and discriminations that result from exposures to hazardous substances and wastes, the Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, Marcos Orellana said.

Presenting his latest report to the UN General Assembly, Orellana said that hazardous substances and wastes are having a disproportionate impact based on peoples’ gender.

The use and release of hazardous substances, often deriving from the petrochemical, extractive and agricultural industries, is causing serious adverse impacts on human rights. Women and girls are specially affected by toxic exposures for biological reasons, including during pregnancy and other health vulnerabilities, but also because of gendered expectations and intersectional discrimination.

“Harms include infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth or low birthweight, cancers and metabolic disorders across society, with grave implications for the rights to life, health, physical and mental integrity and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment,” Orellana said.

He called for applying a reproductive justice approach to better resource maternal and other reproductive health services. A reproductive justice approach links reproductive rights to social and economic inequities, which often result from racism or other forms of discrimination.

The expert said that reproductive health is highly sensitive to and adversely affected by toxics, including overwhelming quantities and numerous variations of endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in a huge range of products. Harm not only reaches through the pregnant person to the child and across the child’s life course but can also reach across generations.

The expert warned against shifting the burden of prevention to individuals or groups in vulnerable situations that may lack the information and resources to do so effectively. “Only stronger national and international regulations can halt the flow of harmful chemicals into our environment and bodies,” the expert said.

The Special Rapporteur emphasised that preventing toxic exposures will improve maternal and newborn health outcomes and protect lifelong health for the next generation.

Orellana’s approach calls for scrutinising not only direct impacts on individuals but also inequities affecting persons and groups that suffer disproportionate impacts because of marginalisation, persecution and colonisation and, additionally or specifically, due to their gender.

The Special Rapporteur noted that scientists and communities have raised alarms about hazardous chemicals for decades, including gendered or sexed harms. As evidence of harms grows, a human rights-based approach to confront the global toxic tide is indispensable, his report said.