World Day for Safety and Health at Work – 2018

 

“Safety begins with awareness and awareness begins with you”. To promote the importance of safety and health at work, ILO – International Labour Organization started observing the World Day for Safety and Health at Work on April 28, 2003. Last year, safety day was observed by emphasizing the critical need for countries to improve their capacity to collect and utilize reliable Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) data by the theme – “Optimize the collection and use of OSH data” .While this year, International safety day 2018, will be observed under the theme – “Occupational safety health (OSH) vulnerability of young workers” with an aim to shield the young workers from workplace hazard.

The World Day for Safety and Health at Work (Safety Day) and the World Day against Child Labour (WDACL) are coming together in a joint campaign to highlight the issues faced by young workers due to hazard at workplace in the massive workforce across the globe.

What is the aim of this campaign?

The campaign will run with an intention to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 8.8 that aims protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments of all workers, including migrant workers, particularly women migrants, and those in precarious employment and SDG target 8.7 to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.

Young Minds – Bricks of future, in misery at brick kiln

A study was conducted by the London-based Anti-Slavery International in India. According to this study, one-third of the total workforce in brick kilns were children, of whom a staggering 65 to 80 per cent were between the ages of five and 14 years. On a normal day these tender minds work for about 9 hours under the scotching sun. Because of is wide presence of ignorance among parents and employers about the hazards at work the health of young workers is destroyed.

On one hand young workers are considered as an  important resource at work place as the future is built with the bricks set up by today’s youth, but  on the other hand when such resource are tend to be misused or overused it can turn into a disaster.

Horror face by children’s at Brick kiln is just small example of child-laborers who are working in many such hazardous conditions without any proper safety system established.

ILO Standards to shelter the young workforce

To shelter the young workers and reduce such hazards at work place, ILO established certain standards to protect the safety and health of young workers with many objectives like to safeguard the life and health of youngsters working in underground mines, to prevent people under the age of 18yrs from work place exploitation, to develop special attention for young workers involving in activities of occupational exposure to asbestos etc.

NIST –Training the youth to effectively manage hazard at work

Before the young workers jump into the work force it is considered essential to give them a general training in health and safety. NIST being India’s major & most preferred Safety Training, Consulting & Auditing Company leaves no stone unturned to give the young minds a basic insight into the world of health and safety. With this aim we provide various courses to train them to function at work safely and also pave the way for the entry-level career into the ever growing field of Health and Safety.

For our county to jump from the phase of “developing” to “developed” our youth are to be fueled with health and  launched safely. With this goal in mind let’s pledge to shelter our budding stars from the hazards at workplace so that they don’t vanish even before reaching their sky.