Visit to Brazil, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes Workers 52. The Brumadinho and Mariana disasters provide ample evidence of the grave risks presented to workers in Brazil by hazardous substances and wastes. Fourteen of the 19 deaths resulting from the Mariana dam collapse were of workers,91 and most of the 270 victims in Brumadinho were Vale’s own workers.92 Brazil abolished the Labour Ministry a few weeks before the Brumadinho dam collapse. Most violations of workers’ right to safe and healthy work in Brazil come from chronic exposures. Factory workers face various obstacles in realising their rights regarding protection from industrial chemical exposure. Workers of Cobrac/Plumbum, in Santo Amaro, suffer from lead poisoning.93 Agricultural workers in Brazil face exposure to pesticides, placing their life and health at risk of chronic illnesses manifesting in them or their children later in life. Workers in the wood industry in Para, where 90% of all wood-related companies in the Brazilian Amazon are based, present a high cancer incidence, including mouth, liver and stomach cancers associated with exposure to wood dust .94 53. 54. Over 300,000 workers were exposed to asbestos in 2010.95 Many of these workers will likely soon die from resultant cancers, with tens of thousands of cases (22%) undetected due to poor identification of disease types and tracking of occupational history. 96 As discussed above, Brazil has not closed its last asbestos mine, failing to enforce a Supreme Court decision and continuing to export asbestos that poisons workers and communities abroad. 97 Numerous countries, including most OECD members, have instituted full-bans on asbestos. 55. Positive efforts include the General Coordination for Occupational Health (CGSAT) of the Ministry of Health strengthening the National Network of Comprehensive Attention to Occupational Health (Renast), as well as the CAREX Brasil Project for occupational exposure to carcinogens. 56. In Brazil, workers’ rights are increasingly threatened including through inadequate health data and monitoring systems, failures to protect workers most at risk including women, and migrant workers, and failures for worker victims of exposure to access justice. Protections are actively undermined by efforts to weaken labour unions, as discussed below. 57. Every worker has a right to safe and healthy work, including protection from exposure to toxics. In 2019, the UN Human Rights Council encouraged States to implement 15 principles on protection of workers from exposure to hazardous substances. 98 While Brazil recognizes all of the human rights of workers contained in the principles, it has yet to implement most of these principles. 58. Brazil must do more to address the situation of workers’ chronic exposure to hazardous substances. The best way to protect workers is to eliminate the hazard.99 As described above, particularly for industrial chemicals and pesticides, as well as workers in extractive industries, Brazil’s workers continue to be exposed to many hazardous substances and processes forbidden around the world. In addition, Brazil has not ratified several key ILO Conventions for occupational health, limiting the ability of the Government to improve the situation of workers. 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 12 Carlos Machado Freitas and Mariano Andrade da Silva (2019) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7138502/. Id. Lorena S. Miranda and José Ângelo S.A.Anjos (April 2018) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753517309566. Sílvia Helena Árias Bahia et al (September 2005) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935104002427. Francisco José Koller et al (2017) http://docs.bvsalud.org/biblioref/2017/10/859582/49192-194253-1pb.pdf. Francisco José Koller et al (2017) http://docs.bvsalud.org/biblioref/2017/10/859582/49192-194253-1pb.pdf. ABREA (2019). A/HRC/42/41. Id., Principle 4.