The New Straits Times, March 5, 2000
By Prof. Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
THE initiative to set up of Women's Service Centres in all constituencies is a welcome move. They are expected to provide services such as counselling on business ventures, domestic problems and personal matters.
Looking around today, The Decade of Women Leadership, as forecasted by futurologists like John Naisbitt, may have arrived. Working women have had a major impact in areas previously dominated by men as professionals, politicians, and entrepreneurs.
However, things are not all rosy for less privileged women. The recent incidences involving the abuse of maids illustrates just some of the problems affecting women.
Although some measures have been taken in terms of policy and regulation to address them, other issues have still not received the attention they deserve.
Therefore, in view of International Women's Day on March 8, it is important that some of these long-standing problems be brought into focus. One problem that particularly affects women in developing countries is 'workplace toxic effects'. In Malaysia, the agriculture and electronic sectors are most likely to be affected.
This is because women make up the larger workforce in some of the sectors dealing with chemicals and pesticides, thus they face greater risks. As their numbers in the workforce increase, so do their health risks.
In the agricultural sector, especially on plantations, many of our women workers regularly come in contact with potent pesticides and other agrochemicals that pose a health risk.
The microelectronic industry, although the environment is vastly different from the plantations, can be equally hazardous. Many companies use potent solvents, while some use lead-based materials in the production processes. All these can put the worker at risk.
The International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) based in Geneva cited the microelectronics industry as one that can give rise to 'workplace toxic effects' specifically 'psychological instability'. These problems that affect the women workers are apparently associated with personality disorders and are the result of organic solvent toxicity.
Because of societal pressures, many women are exposed to unwarranted chemicals in their daily lives. The use of a substance called hydroquinone, a scheduled poison, is a good example. Not long ago, it was reported that women were being administered with dubious beauty products containing hydroquinone; the results were severe adverse skin reactions.
In the rural areas, women are also unsuspecting targets of direct-selling techniques. Until recently, dangerous products containing hydroquinone were freely sold to the public as skin whiteners or whitening creams. Alternatively other cosmetics and soaps containing heavy metals such as mercury have been used by women to lighten their skin colour.
Other potentially dangerous medicines - those with no proven benefit - claim to bring everything from weight loss to a cure for cancer or AIDS are also sold illegally. These are quite apart from the fake ones that are occasionally seized.
For women in the larger urban centres, the use of tranquillisers may become the problem it already is in many developed countries.
In the UK, for example, one study showed that for every benzodiazepine (an anti-anxiety drug) prescribed for men, three are prescribed for women. Malaysia, in its march towards vision 2020, is also open to this problem judging by advertisements for these products. These ads typically show a woman in distress and unable to cope - suggesting that women are the "best" customers for these items.
In a nutshell, not only are women more exposed than men in some situations involving the use of chemical substances (including drugs), their predicament are often not well understood and attended to.
Some studies even indicated that "when doctors are confronted with similar 'cases', they are more likely to attribute symptoms in women to psychological causes and those in men to physical problems."
The consequences are not always as desirable, nor compatible.
In Malaysia, this same problem may exist in a different form.
All these discrepancies must be rectified immediately since the toxic effects on women can be more marked than in men. Given biological and biochemical differences between men and women, these effects could lead to serious toxic reactions.
As for the Malaysian public, as a whole, we must help to increase its awareness about the vulnerability of women towards these risks, and show more concern in protecting them from such incidences. They must be adequately protected and compensated for the hazards arising from indiscriminate use of the chemical substances and chemical-based products now proliferating in our society.
The article is written in consultation with Mary J. Breen, a freelance editor on women's health issues living in Canada.
