References to occupational exposures Challenges faced by workers could not be directly invoked before national courts and tribunals. The former Special Rapporteur noted that Poland was not a party to a number of ILO conventions on health and safety at work, and called on the Government to consider ratifying these conventions, in particular the Convention concerning Occupational Safety and Health and the Working Environment, 1981 (No. 155) and the Convention concerning the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents, 1993 (No. 174). “Human rights and Extractive Industries” (A/HRC/21/48) (2012) The report surveys the human rights impacts to workers engaged in mining from exposure to hazardous substances. Mining is considered one of the world’s most dangerous occupations. Workers are exposed to intense heat, toxic substances and fumes, unstable geological structures and intense sounds. Inadequate safety protocols in the handling, storing and disposal of toxic substances are contrary to international human rights treaties protecting the right to safe and healthy working conditions. For example, more significant health effects have been found among uranium miners who are exposed to high levels of radon. A well-known and potentially fatal respiratory disease affecting extractive industry workers is coal worker’s pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease, which causes the lungs to inflame and stiffen from scarring. Another potentially debilitating and fatal outcome of exposure to coal dust is silicosis. Disturbingly, up to 12 per cent of coal miners develop these two deadly diseases. Despite increasing global consensus of the dangers of mercury, the former Special Rapporteur expressed concern that miners and their families are still exposed to this hazardous substance and neurotoxin; miners in Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Indonesia, the Philippines, United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe were recorded with mercury levels of up to 50 times above the limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO). A study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the National Cancer Institute of the United States of America showed a direct relationship between diesel exhaust and lung cancer. Underground miners are exposed to over 100 times the background concentrations of diesel exhaust, and the use of diesel-fuelled equipment is growing in the mining community. Not surprisingly, the study found that underground miners, who have the greatest exposure to diesel exhaust, have a higher lung cancer mortality rate than surface miners, as well as elevated oesophageal cancer and pneumoconiosis. In most cases, children working in extractive industries constitutes one of the worst forms of child labour. The 2012 report notes ILO estimates that one million children worldwide are involved in mining and quarrying, and often with little or no pay; UNEP estimates put that number at between one million and two million. Children as young as 3 years work in dangerous conditions which expose them to hazardous substances, including mercury, lead and cyanide. The mines are often too remote to have regular labour inspections, and they do not have unionized workers, resulting in the so-called “frontier communities” where traditional social structures of society and ethical value systems have broken down. Mercury intoxication has been called an epidemic among children working in gold mines. The • Inadequate standards of protection • Limited progress in prevention of exposure • Monitoring and enforcement gaps • Exploitation of those most at risk • Informal economy A/HRC/39/48 36 Report