As The New York Times reported last month, the government in South Africa declared a national emergency — 23 children died and nearly 900 people were sickened from pesticide poisoning in Johannesburg’s Soweto township.

The illnesses and fatalities have been traced to small amounts of highly neurotoxic pesticides, including the insecticides terbufos and aldicarb, found in local food items.

Without formal electricity, running water or municipal garbage collection, many residents rely on highly toxic pesticides for pest infestations in their homes and makeshift markets, resulting in food inadvertently being contaminated with pesticides.

In response, a partnership between the Women on Farms Project and Oxfam (in South Africa and Germany) launched a “Double Standards Pesticides” campaign in 2019 to pressure the government of South Africa to ban 67 pesticides already banned in the European Union.