Mozambique
Mozambique criticised over labour rights violations

afrol.com, 25 January - Nearly 33% of Mozambican children between age 10-14 are expected to be economically active this year, according to a report released today by the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). This is one of the highest known rates of child labour in any country, provoking a protest from trade unions.

The ICFTU report coincides with a review of Mozambique's trade policy by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and concentrates on Mozambique's respect for internationally-recognised core labour standards which include freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, prohibition of child and forced labour and non-discrimination in employment.

The ICFTU report calls on the WTO and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to require Mozambique to tackle its abuses of basic workers' rights and respect the internationally recognised core labour standards Mozambique has signed up to at both institutions.

On Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining, Mozambique has ratified both ILO Convention 87 and 98. However, public officials are excluded from some elements of the 1998 Labour Law that sets out the rights to freedom of association. The ICFTU's affiliate in Mozambique, the Organisation of Mozambican Workers (OTM-CS), has reported that further to their pressure on the Government to allow public servants to create their own unions, they hope that the right to organise will be extended to public sector workers during the course of 2001.

Anti-union discrimination is prohibited in Mozambique, but the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) concluded recently that the penalties for anti-union discrimination are not sufficiently dissuasive. It has recommended that the Government increase the fines for such violations in order to ensure that workers' right to join a trade union is effectively enforced.

Civil servants continue to be excluded from the scope of legislation permitting collective bargaining, the report continues. The ILO has informed Mozambique that several of the classes of employment listed as essential services are not compatible with the ILO's own accepted definition of those services "whose interruption would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population." The OTM-CS is actively engaged in elaborating proposals to be submitted for the revision of the legislation concerned.

There have been cases where anti-riot police have responded violently to demonstration. A well-known case occurred in January 1998, where one striker was killed and four others wounded by the police. 

On Discrimination and Equal Remuneration, Mozambique has ratified both core conventions 100 and 111. Yet, the report notes that discrimination is still widespread and contradictions between the Constitutional provisions and some civil legal codes persist which weaken women's work place rights. The Government issued a report in October 2000 stating that 66 percent of Mozambican women suffer from absolute poverty, while accounting for the same percentage of the country's economic production.

Discrimination against migrant workers was also brought to the attention of the WTO. The case of 400 Mozambican workers in an aluminium plant, fired for having staged a demonstration to protest at wage disparity between themselves and South African migrant workers, illustrates this reality. The OTM-CS is now engaging with the government in the formulation of legislation to protect workers from discrimination on the basis of HIV/AIDS, an initiative fully backed by the ICFTU.

Mozambique has so far failed to ratify the two core ILO Conventions on Child Labour (138 & 182), the ICFTU reminded the Geneva-based WTO. For the year 2000, the ILO forecasts that there will be 791,000 economically active children between the ages of 10-14, representing 32.41% of this age group. In unregulated activities such as agriculture and domestic work, child labour is regrettably still common practice.

On forced labour, Mozambique has ratified Convention 105 (Abolition of Forced Labour), but not yet Convention 29 (Forced Labour). According to the OTM-CS, the latter has been proposed to Parliament for ratification. The majority of the legislation permitting forced labour dating from the late 1970's and early 1980's is still on the statute books. While there have been no recent reports of these provisions being invoked, the Government's lack of co-operation with the ILO on a longstanding request to withdraw the offending statutes is a cause for concern, the ICFTU notes in its report. 

The plight of Mozambican migrants to South Africa, (recently captured in a video showing South African police and their dogs brutalising a Mozambican migrant) many of whom are enslaved in brothels and on plantations, also demands the urgent attention of both the Mozambican and South African governments.

The ICFTU report concludes in calling upon the WTO to work with the ILO to bring pressure to bear on the Mozambican authorities to make the necessary changes in line with their commitments made in the WTO Ministerial Declarations of Singapore in 1996 and Geneva in 1998 and at the ILO. 

The Mozambique report has been published as one in a series of ICFTU reports to pressure the WTO's 140 member governments to comply with the commitment to respect core labour standards that they made at the Ministerial Conferences of the WTO in Singapore in 1996 and Geneva in 1998, and in the ILO's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. 

The ICFTU is the world's largest trade union body and represents more than 155 million workers world-wide. The conferation also represents most leading African trade unions and does active lobbying for improved labour and social rights in Africa.

Source: ICFTU

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