Following the collapse of a commercial building in Bangladesh, the Rana Plaza in 2013, and the Turkish mine explosion in 2014 – both incidents with high death tolls – safe working conditions have received much attention internationally. The third dimension, safety at work, covers occupational safety – cases of fatal and non-fatal occupational injury. It did not prove possible to gather adequate data on health issues related to work, nor on forced/child labor. It would also be interesting to include data on the informal economy, as occupational safety in the informal sector tends to be much worse than in the formal sector.

At the moment Safety at work is not included in the index because of considerable weaknesses in the data for many countries.

Legal base and framework

LO’s Occupational Safety and Health Convention (1981), Convention on the worst forms of child labour (1999), Forced Labour Convention (1930).