Workers face difficult conditions in Uganda’s salt gardens. Men wear condoms and women wear pads to protect their reproductive organs. Too much exposure and their systems go array. At the Kireka Quarry, women suffer back and lung problems from crushing rocks while sitting on the ground and inhaling dust. Men suffer the fires and smog of the deep pits and the burning rocks.
Both have one thing in common: little protection and limited government involvement to provide regulations. How can we get these marginalized communities - who will inevitably always exist in poor economies – the necessary protection to do their job with minimal harm? What segment of the government – for it should be a locally sustained solution – would be able to offer some advocacy and support? In what form?
