Flower workers in developing countries like Kenya and Colombia risk their health for unsafe, insecure jobs supplying UK supermarkets. In our new report Growing Pains War on Want investigates the human cost of cut flowers in British supermarkets.
Supermarkets sell 70% of all the flowers bought in the UK - the highest proportion in Europe. But the workers in Colombia and Kenya supplying those flowers to the supermarkets face low wages, health problems such as repetitive strain injuries and miscarriages through exposure to pesticides. Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury's all source from one or both of these countries, and have enormous influence over flower producers and ultimately the health and safety of workers.
and are powerless to stop it. Most patients in Columbian hospitals work in the flower industry. Two-thirds of Colombian and Ecuadorian flower workers reportedly suffer from work-related health problems, including headaches, nausea, impaired vision, conjunctivitis, rashes, asthma, stillbirths, miscarriages, congenital malformations and respiratory and neurological problems. When the children become sick they don’t receive sick pay or medical care because most are employed on temporary contracts, which do not include benefits. In addition, run-off from the farms contaminates the water supply with pesticides.
When they are eight or nine, we see children mixing pesticides in the tanks without gloves, masks, or any protection. We may not see the effects until five to twenty years later when they can no longer move their hands.
I am looking forward to working with this issue further as I have already found out some shocking things and it is making me more aware of problems around me that I didn't even know existed.
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