What has gender got to do with chemicals ?

How POPs, hazardous chemicals and waste have different exposures and impacts on women’s and men’s health

    • How are women and men differently impacted in their health by POPs / hazardous chemicals & waste?
    • How do women and men’s occupations and roles at home and at work influence exposure to POPs / hazardous chemicals & waste?
    • What best practices with women and men’s leadership exist to substitute and eliminate POPs / hazardous chemicals & waste exist?

In Africa’s most populated country, Nigeria, with its almost 200 million inhabitants, toxic pollution from waste is yet another challenge to society, economy and security.

Filmmaker Laure Poinsot, shows how women and men are impacted by toxic pollution from waste and chemicals – partly imported illegally from Europe and America – while it visits the hidden e-waste markets and waste dumps around the country.

The film produced by the BRS Conventions , WECF and WEP, also shows how social entrepreneurs, women’s organisations, authorities and the UN are working on solutions, such as waste collection, recycling and production of safe pesticides from the indigenous NEEM tree.

More Information

    • Gender Dimensions of Hazardous Chemicals and Waste policies under the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, wecf.eu, 2017/11-November.
    • WECF International press release, 15th of January 2018.

Mechanisms of Invisibility : forgotten Sentinels of DES Diethylstilbestrol Progeny

Mechanisms of Invisibility : Forgotten Sentinels of Diethylsbestrol Progeny
See more DES Adverts on Flickr

In the fantastic post “Mechanisms of Invisibility : forgotten Sentinels of Diethylsbestrol Progeny” on OSI Bouaké – a bi-lingual website focusing mainly on the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa – the following points are covered in detail:

  • Diethylstilbestrol was one of the first identified endocrine disruptors. However, efforts to warn french physicians about the drug’s potentially dangerous effects on pregnant women failed. Emmanuelle Fillion and Didier Torny show how sentinels sometimes don’t work
  • A non-existent sentinel group : DES-exposed progeny
  • Useless sentinels or how to avoid publicizing DES knowledge
  • A singular history or how endocrine disruptors did not transform DES

Read Mechanisms of Invisibility : forgotten Sentinels of #Diethylsbestrol Progeny, published 27 June 2013

More DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources