By IANS
Islamabad : Pakistan’s women cotton pickers are exposed to chronic pesticide poisoning with symptoms ranging from mild headache and skin allergies to cancer, a new study says.
Of the blood samples of women cotton pickers collected after the last harvesting season, 42 percent showed pesticide levels exceeding the normal range.
Conducted by the Islamabad-based Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), the study says that blood samples of only 10 percent of the women cotton pickers were in the normal range.
“An estimated two million women pickers harvest the cotton in three to five waves from August to February,” Dawn reported Monday.
“It is estimated that about 80 percent of the total pesticides consumed in Pakistan is applied on the cotton crop. So, the most significant health risk the cotton pickers face is their chronic exposure to pesticides spray which remained in their working environment,” it added.
“The cuts and skin rashes of cotton-pickers further expose them to the hazards of pesticides,” said the study, published in the SDPI research journal.
It said that picking cotton was also common during pregnancy and breastfeeding, which posed additional risks to the health of women and their children.
The study said that pickers and their family members consumed water which was also contaminated with pesticides and these pesticides also entered the food chain because of exposure of soil and livestock to them and the cotton seeds that were processed to produce edible oil.
“Cotton stalks are also used as fuel wood in the cotton belt of the country. Residuals are thus inhaled by cotton-pickers and their communities. Equally hazardous effects of pesticide exposures have been found among farmers as well as non-farmers during research in southern Punjab,” the study said.
“This comes as no surprise that people living in a village often use water from the same wells for drinking situated in a nearby field.”
The study also highlighted low wages of cotton pickers and their exploitation by feudal lords, adding that wages of women cotton pickers were lower than those of their male counterparts because men had other choices of work as well.
“On an average, a fast picker can harvest 40kg of cotton in a day. In southern Punjab, a cotton picker was previously paid Rs.1 per kg of cotton, meaning thereby that a fast picker could earn only Rs.40 a day.
“These wages saw an increase last year. During the last picking season, Rs.50 to Rs.80 was paid to a labourer for picking 40 kg of cotton. But, the benefit of this increase is offset by unbridled rise in the Consumer Price Index,” the study said.
“Cotton-pickers are trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, fuelled by low wages they receive and the health hazards they are exposed to. The low wages are restricting pickers to buy and use such equipment which can protect them from harmful effects of pesticides,” it maintained.