[Project for amending regulations regarding jobs prohibited to women]

Abstract

Considering that the current legal regulations on jobs prohibited to women lack consistency, especially in relation to the criteria for including specific jobs into the prohibited category, and because the regulations fail to protect women satisfactorily from the harmful effects of occupational and environmental loads and exposures, preparation of new legal regulations on those matters has been attempted. Special stress has been put on specifying parameters which, when measured and compared with the suggested allowable values, should provide a basis for deciding whether a woman can be employed at a specified post. Separate criteria have been specified to determine jobs prohibited to women: a) irrespective of age, b) at reproductive age, c) during pregnancy and lactation. The irrespective-of-age restrictions result from lower average physical efficiency of women in relation to men, lower muscular strength and different psychical or biological characteristics. Lower allowable physical loads and lower maximum allowable weights of objects to be carried or moved by women have been specified. In specifying the restrictions for women at the reproductive age it has been assumed that, when determining the maximum allowable concentrations of chemicals at workplaces, effects of those chemicals on the reproducibility and health state of the off spring were taken into consideration. However, for chemicals which, according to the present knowledge, show genotoxic, teratogenic, or reproduction-disturbing effects, employers will be obliged to inform the reproductive-age female employees about the risk involved, as well as to take steps to reduce, as far as possible, below MAC the concentrations of those chemicals in the ambient air at workplaces. The restrictions in the employment of the pregnant and lactating women are intended to ensure conditions enabling correct development of pregnancy and safe growth of the fetus and, subsequently, of the neonate. The restrictions relate to: physical effort--as this has been proved to affect the course and the outcome of pregnancy (increased abortion risk, reduced duration of pregnancy, reduced neonate weight); exposure to carcinogens--as there is evidence that carcinogens display genotoxic properties and are capable of permeating the placenta: exposure to agents which can disturb the course of pregnancy and damage the fetus or unfavourably affect health condition of the offspring even if the MAC and MAI values are not exceeded; exposure to biologic agents, evidently harmful to the fetus and to the condition of health of the progeny.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)