TOXIC TANNERIES the Health Repercussions of Bangladesh’S Hazaribagh Eather W a T C H
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
H U M A R I G H T S TOXIC TANNERIES The Health Repercussions of Bangladesh’s Hazaribagh eather W A T C H Toxic Tanneries The Health Repercussions of Bangladesh’s Hazaribagh Leather Copyright © 2012 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-56432-950-X Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice. We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. We challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all. Human Rights Watch is an international organiza tion with staff in more than 40 countries, and offices in Amsterdam, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Goma, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, Tunis, Washington DC, and Zurich. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.hrw.org OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 1-56432-950-X Toxic Tanneries The Health Repercussions of Bangladesh’s Hazaribagh Leather Summary ........................................................................................................................... 1 Recommendations .............................................................................................................14 Map of Hazaribagh ............................................................................................................ 17 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 18 I. Background ................................................................................................................... 20 Hazaribagh’s Tanneries ......................................................................................................... 20 Water, Soil, and Air Pollution .................................................................................................. 23 II. Findings ....................................................................................................................... 31 Hazaribagh: Beyond Reach of the Law ..................................................................................... 31 An Occupational Health and Safety Crisis ................................................................................ 41 III. The Way Forward ......................................................................................................... 72 Immediate Regulation of Tannery Pollution ............................................................................. 73 Immediate Regulation of Working Conditions in Tanneries ...................................................... 75 Due Diligence by Buyers ....................................................................................................... .. 75 Cleaning Up Hazaribagh ......................................................................................................... 77 IV. Bangladesh’s Obligations Related to Human Rights and the Environment .................... 79 Protecting Human Rights in the Context of Business Activity .................................................... 79 Health .................................................................................................................................... 79 Water .................................................................................................................................... 84 Hazardous Child Labor ......................................................................................................... .. 87 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 89 Annex 1: Correspondence with the Bangladeshi Government ............................................ 90 Annex 2: Leather Processing .......................................................................................... 100 SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | OCTOBER 2012 1 Leather scraps are laid out to dry near a landfll in Hazaribagh. Dhaka, June 2012. TOXIC TANNERIES The Health Repercussions of Bangladesh’s Hazaribagh Leather Photographs by Arantxa Cedillo for Human Rights Watch Slum houses in Hazaribagh beside an open gutter channeling untreated effuent from tanneries nearby. Local residents of Hazaribagh reported to Human Rights Watch an array of health problems—many of them undiagnosed due to the cost of medical attention—such as fevers, diarrhea, respiratory problems, and skin, stomach, and eye conditions. Dhaka, June 2012. ahaj, 17, has worked in a factory where animal meter square tanks that hold hides and many of J hides are tanned in Hazaribagh, a combined the diluted chemicals used to cure them. Jahaj residential and industrial neighborhood of particularly dislikes working there. Dhaka, since he was 12. He works a 10-hour day (with an hour off for lunch) and earns 3,000 taka We get inside, take the hides with our (US$37) a month. Around 50 other people work in hands and throw them outside the pit. We the tannery, including a seven and an eight-year- wear gloves and boots but water splashes old, who are employed nailing hides out to dry. on our skin and clothes. We don’t wear an apron. The water in the pits has acid, Jahaj told Human Rights Watch that he mostly which burns when it touches my skin. processes raw hides into the frst stage of leather, known as “wet blue,” which exposes him to He suffers from rashes and itches; his father and hazardous chemicals. The tannery pits are four- two brothers, also tannery workers, have similar 4 TOXIC TANNERIES skin diseases. Asked why he performed such lots of cuts and bruises on my head, my hazardous tasks, he said: “When I’m hungry, back, my arms. There are long wooden acid doesn’t matter—I have to eat.” planks inside the drum that make the skins soft and they hit my body repeatedly. Jahaj has had various accidents at work: he once stepped on a nail used to pin leather out to dry, A major Dhaka hospital diagnosed Jahaj with has hurt his back lifting heavy hides, and was asthma. “The fumes from the chemicals where I once trapped inside a large rotating wooden work are really strong,” he said. When Jahaj can- drum used to hold the skins. not work because he is ill or injured, he is not paid—also a violation of Bangladesh’s labor laws. I started shouting, ‘Who has turned on Nor, he said, has he seen a government labor the drum?’ After a couple of minutes they inspector during his fve years at the tannery. turned it off but I was already injured with HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | OCTOBER 2012 5 Untreated tannery effuent in a pond near the Hazaribagh tanneries in Bangladesh and, as a result, holds an impor- tanneries. The government estimates that the Hazaribagh tanneries release about 21,000 cubic meters of untreated effuent each tant place in Bangladesh’s increasingly lucrative leather day. This wastewater surpasses Bangladesh’s permitted limits industry. From June 2011 to July 2012, Bangladesh’s for tannery effuent, in some cases by many thousands of times tanneries exported close to $663 million in leather and permitted concentrations. Dhaka, June 2012. leather goods—such as shoes, handbags, suitcases, and belts—to some 70 countries worldwide, including China, Human Rights Watch estimates there are some 150 tanner- South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United ies in Hazaribagh, ranging in size from small operations States. Over the past decade, leather exports have grown with just a dozen or so workers to larger ones that employ by an average of $41 million each year. a few hundred workers. Together, the tanneries employ around 8,000 to 12,000 people (swelling to around This report is based on research conducted in Bangla- 15,00o during the peak processing season for two or three desh between January and May 2012, and interviews with months following the annual festival of Eid-al-Adha). 134 people, including past and current tannery workers, slum residents, healthcare professionals, workers with Hazaribagh is home to between 90 and 95 percent of all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trade union and 6 TOXIC TANNERIES government offcials, leather technologists, and chemi- In some tanneries, old machinery, poor machinery maintenance, cal suppliers. and a lack of training for workers increase the risks of operating tannery machines. Dhaka, June 2012. This report supports previous reports, studies, surveys, and even government fndings dating to the 1990s that in an enforcement-free zone in which they are subject to have documented a range of human rights abuses and little or no government oversight with regard to environ- problematic conditions in and around Hazaribagh tan- mental regulations or labor laws, as government offcials neries. These include unregulated industrial pollution of readily admit. Quazi Sarwar Imtiaz Hashmi, a Department air, water and soil, illness among local residents, perilous of Environment offcial put it simply: “There is no monitor- working conditions, and labor of girls and boys (often in ing and no enforcement in Hazaribagh.” hazardous conditions and for menial pay). As a result of this inaction—which is due to a de facto