Women’s work in the Latin American agro: multiple exposures, variety of effects and never-ending challenges

Introduction:   Women’s working conditions in the Latin-American agro are varied and highly demanding. Gender profiles built during the last decade in different sub- regions of Latin America demonstrate the enormous gender gap that persists between urban and rural work for women. Rural working environments are diverse and heterogenic as the region’s development is. Rural working women are the milestones of the rural productive units and their needs and gaps remain to be understood and approached.    

Methods:   A systematic search and the review of several country and sub-regional reports were conducted to obtain information about different women’s work in agricultural settings, and about OHS surveillance methods and systems that have been developed in several countries of the region.    

Results:   Rural women in many countries of the region were found to have triple work shifts to comply with three roles: reproductive (family raising and others), Productive (performing different working activities), and community based activities. According to the type of cultures, the use of agrochemicals, the collection of crops and the wrapping of products, women are exposed to a wide variety of chemical, physical, ergonomic and biological hazards. Health conditions for them are precarious, and poverty, lack of resources and basic social services, as well as other social problems in rural areas trend to worsen working and living conditions.      

Discussion:  Systematic follow-ups of working conditions and multiple chemical exposures to control chemical, physical, biological and ergonomic hazards remain to be a huge challenge, Making these problems visible will allow to finding control solutions for unnecessary exposures and to prevent undesirable health outcomes.  Strong participation of stakeholders at different levels was a common denominator found within countries. Programs seeking to find solutions aimed to avoid their consequences, and to promoting safe and healthy working conditions should follow.