HIV/AIDS Prevention and Impact Mitigation on the World of Work in Sub Sahara Africa (RAF/05/59/SID)

Desk Officer:

The overall programme to prevent HIV/AIDS and mitigate its impact in the world of work consists of several components, interlinked across several ILO backstopping units. All of them build on results and lessons learned from existing and past ILO interventions, focussed on high risk sectors: transport sector, as high risk population, workers in informal economy and members of cooperatives, and improved compliance with policy and legal frameworks for basic workers’ rights. This last area takes into account the importance of reinforcing legal systems, in order to ensure that any action trying to respond to HIV/AIDS finds its support within an effective legal framework and its enforcement mechanisms.

DIALOGUE has responsibility for this third component, which will assist social partners and other stakeholders (labour courts, judges and labour inspectors) to strengthen their capacity to apply relevant labour standards, improved national laws and the ILO’s 2001 Code of Practice. This will in turn improve compliance with labour/OSH law and regulations in the workplace, enhancing a non-discriminatory and safe work environment. ILO tools already exist to enrich the training, such as:

• Guidelines on Addressing HIV/AIDS in the workplace through employment and labour law (provide technical guidance on how best to incorporate, taking into account the various national circumstances and legal traditions, the body of international principles that have arisen in the field of labour law, in particular citing good practices);
• Handbook on HIV/AIDS for labour and factory inspectors (helps labour and factory inspectors deal with the issue of HIV/AIDS using the ILO Code of Practice to make it clear why HIV/AIDS is a labour issue and development challenge, to examine the links between HIV/AIDS and the principles and practice of labour inspection with particular reference to occupational safety and health, and to develop practical tools for use during inspection and help inspectors integrate HIV/AIDS into their future activities); and
• Guidelines for Labour Judges and Magistrates (contribute to a fuller understanding among labour judges and magistrates of ILO standards and principles relevant to HIV/AIDS and how they can integrate them into their work. Using the ILO Code of Practice and providing examples of the ways in which the key principles of the Code have been applied through national legislation and jurisprudence).

The countries selected for this training and research component are: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo, and Zimbabwe. Of these, four will be piloted for intensive training of trainers (ToT) to development networks for dealing with psychosocial issues related to HIV/AIDS. The countries selected for this area are: Benin, Botswana, Lesotho and Togo.

Target groups are private sector enterprises and employers’ organisations, trade unions and relevant government institutions (tribunals and courts, Labour Advisory Boards and National OSH & AIDS Councils): their awareness of the impact of HIV/AIDS will be increased and their capacity will be strengthened to implement national legislation, policies and programmes and to assist in improving such laws, where needs be, based on research compiled in a comprehensive “Digest of Labour and Employment Laws Addressing HIV/AIDS”.

The Southern African Subregional Seminar on HIV/AIDS and Employment Issues for Labour Courts took place in Pretoria, South Africa, 15-18 May 2006. For more information, you can access the report (pdf 243 KB). You can also access the report (pdf 267 KB) (French only) of the seminar which took place in Douala, Cameroon, 18-21 September 2006.