Syndicate
Login Form
News Feeds
Who's Online
| ANROAV ANNUAL MEETING 2007 |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, 27 June 2007 | |||||
Page 1 of 3 August 29 to 31 2007 Hong Kong Your presence can make it grand success ANROAV annual meeting is the highest decision making body for the network where future plans and direction of the network are discussed and the past activities are reviewed. In this years meeting the main focus will be on the critical issues in Occupational health and safety in Asia and devising strategies towards them and also strategies to strengthen the ANROAV as a network and how to enhance fruitful partnership with similar networks across the globe. This year we are expecting guests from OSH groups from the America and the Europe to participate in the ANROAV meeting. This should give us enough opportunity towards enhancing partnership with these groups and working towards the creation of a global OSH grassroots network. The key objectives of the 2007 annual meeting are as follows: * To provide updates on various ANROAV struggles and campaigns – Asbestos, Silicosis (gem and jewellery), Mining , Cadmium Poisoning and Electronics * To devise strategies and plans on strengthening the victims' movement and also spreading it across other regions. * Share experiences with OSH groups outside Asia and draw up joint strategies for future * Review the past activities of the ANROAV. * Propose the next year strategic plan. ANROAV Annual meeting, August 29 to 31 2007 Hong Kong, China Introduction- a silent Massacre Occupational safety and health of workers dominates as one of the major labour issues in the region and the struggle for the right to better safety and health at workplaces continues in almost all parts of Asia. The struggle is spearheaded by the victims of the occupational accidents and diseases in different Asian countries demanding safe workplaces and rightful compensation and rehabilitation. Asia on a whole has maintained an impressive economic growth spearheaded by two giants China and India and all the growth figures appear every quarter and can be broken down to very minute details. OSH however is a completely different story and figures of fatalities, with exception of few countries, are not even available at annual basis. It appears a norm in the region to project the impressive growth figures and not record or report OSH injuries and fatalities. Frustrated ILO, who seldom receives any data from countries on OSH, uses a mathematical model to project the fatalities in Asia. Ironically the data used in the model is the fatality data from some industrialised countries that record and report meticulously all injuries, fatalities and diseases e.g. Finland and the figures are extrapolated for Asian countries. Bizarre as it might seem as none of the countries in Asia can match the ‘safety’ conditions of Finland, yet the ‘conservative’ estimates are very high. The thought of reality will scare anyone as it is a silent massacre taking place at the workplaces in Asia and no one seems to notice (a fatality estimate of 1.1 million for Asia in 2001 out of a total global figure of 2.2 million). More than a million lives lost a year in Asia due to unsafe workplaces and many millions more must be injured and diseased. Many of the injured workers are the sole breadwinners for the family and injury or disease to them affects the whole family. Very few affected workers get proper compensation and often leads them and their family to poverty and destitution. The ILO has maintained repeatedly that more workers die of occupational diseases rather than accidents. However, if we look at the majority of the OSH initiatives by the companies and the governments in the region, most of them focus on mere accident prevention rather than a comprehensive disease and accident prevention. Official data on occupational diseases is non existent. The missing disease component has deeper connotations, it reflects to the miserable status of the diagnostic infrastructure in Asian countries which in turn is reflected in unreported cases. But workers continue to die quietly in their villages (as sick workers are often sent back home) of ‘unknown’ causes. |
|||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|