A/HRC/40/56 secondary sector.31 Women represent half of those workers and 20 per cent of inland fishers who forage, glean and catch fish from shore or from small boats. 32 B. Occupational safety and health hazards 20. According to ILO, fishery work is notoriously “dirty, dangerous and difficult”, yet States often fail to implement applicable national health and safety regulations due to a lack of resources and difficulties in monitoring the sector. In commercial fisheries, approximately 24,000 workers die each year. 33 There are also high rates of injury and disease.34 Most fatal incidents occur at sea, either from overexposure to heat, sun and salt water or because of the dangerous equipment used to catch, sort and store fish. Accidents can also result from inoperative tools and machinery and inadequate safety equipment. Simple life-saving measures such as life vests and medical supplies are often absent on board, and captains may be unwilling to return to shore for medical attention. Moreover, the prolonged isolation of crew in long-distance fishing fleets and poor living conditions on board undermine workers’ health and well-being. 21. Inland fishery workers are similarly lacking in adequate safety equipment and may suffer fatal accidents from unstable fishing platforms. Drowning has been reported among fishers, especially children who are forced to dive without protective equipment, in artificial reservoirs such as Lake Volta, the largest reservoir in the world, and in Lake Kariba. In Arctic regions, ice fishers may develop hypothermia. The health of fish farmers is also compromised by prolonged exposure to toxic disinfectants and dangerous antibiotics in the water. In open-seas aquaculture, as in Norway, fish farmers encounter dangerous winds, waves and currents and cold temperatures. 22. Post-harvest workers, mostly women, experience unique hazards associated with damp processing facilities, where they stand for long hours and often work without gloves or other basic protective clothing. Many of these workers inevitably develop serious health problems. Even when States require safety measures for processing facilities, workers may lack proper training and awareness of potential risks. C. Right to a living wage 23. Despite the occupational hazards that fishery workers endure in an effort to earn a living, most of them remain unable to pay for basic needs and services for themselves and their families. As the right to food requires the guarantee of a living wage, workers must be able to afford food, clothing, housing, education and health care. 1. Wages and contracts 24. Contrary to the ILO standards relating to seafarers, 35 no minimum basic wage figure exists under the ILO framework for fishery workers.36 As a result, salaries are usually less than national minimum wages and rank among the lowest per capita income (A/67/268, para. 26). For example, in Bangladesh, 87 per cent of fishers find themselves below the poverty line, with a per capita annual income of around $412, three times lower than the national average. Wages are especially low in the small-scale fisheries sector, where most fishery workers are self-employed or work without formal contracts. It is estimated that 5.8 31 32 33 34 35 36 6 FAO, Review of the state of the world fishery resources, p. xiv. FAO, Review of the state of the world fishery resources, p. 264. See also FAO and ILO, Guidance on addressing child labour in fisheries and aquaculture (Turin, 2013), p. 85. Ibid. ILO Recommendation No. 187 concerning Seafarers’ Wages, Hours of Work and the Manning of Ships. ILO, “The Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (No. 188): getting on board”, issues paper for discussion at the Global Dialogue Forum for the promotion of the Work in Fishing Convention, Geneva, 15–17 May 2013, p. 4.