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afrol News, 25 June - "While Gabon has ratified seven of the eight ILO conventions covering internationally recognised core labour standards, respecting them in practice is another matter," according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). The world's largest labour group has now published a new report which points to serious flaws in the country's respect of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions which cover freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, discrimination, child labour and forced labour. The report on Gabon is the latest in a series of reports in accordance with the Declaration adopted at the 1st Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Singapore in 1996 where Ministers agreed to respect core labour standards, the sydicalist movement informs. The ICFTU report calls on the WTO and the ILO to require Gabon to tackle the problem of basic workers' rights and respect the internationally recognised core labour standards which it has committed itself to at both institutions. Gabon has ratified both Conventions 87 and 98 which cover freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. The ICFTU noted in its report that "legal mechanisms restrict the ability of civil servants to exercise their right to strike. The Government's inspection and mediation capacity is inadequate, the report continues, and there have been recent cases of anti-union discrimination and violation of freedom of association and collective bargaining," according to an ICFTU statement. On matters of discrimination, "the provisions of the labour code are not enforced in sectors or regions with a concentration of migrant workers," the report concludes. "Many of these migrant workers are undocumented and not protected by the law, and are not able to exercise their right to freedom of association without reprisal from their employer. Working conditions, including pay, health and safety regulations and severance procedures, are much lower for this large migrant workforce than for native Gabonese workers." Another issue looked at by the report is the question of child labour. According to the ICFTU, "it is a systematic problem, with a reported 19,000 - 20,000 economically active children between the ages of ten and fourteen. The lack of enforcement and inspection capacity in the Ministry of Labour means that many children work as domestic servants and in marketplaces, complaints of child labour are not investigated, and violations are often not punished." Even if Gabon ratified both ILO Conventions on forced labour, child forced labour is said to be a serious problem in Gabon. "Trafficking of children occurs in Gabon, and many children are trafficked in to the country from other west and central African countries, and forced to work in agriculture and marketplaces as domestic servants and as prostitutes. Many of the children working, as domestic servants and prostitutes." - These child slaves, the ICFTU notes, "are often victims of sexual abuse, and there are serious allegations that government officials are complicit in the trafficking of children in Gabon. Recently attention has been drawn to this problem by the case of the Nigerian-owned ship carrying child slaves from Benin to Gabon, and by media investigations in the United Kingdom of the cocoa industry in west and central Africa."
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