Workshops on convections 156, 183 and 189

Workshops on convections 156, 183 and 189 between ILO office in Angola, Brazil, Portugal and Mozambique and tri-partite partners in Mozambique

ILO office in Maputo in collaboration with its counterparts in Brasilia, Luanda and Lisbon organized a two days workshop to discuss and share experiences on implementation of Decent Work Country program with emphasis on equality conventions 156-Workers with Family Responsibilities, 183-Maternity Protection and 189-Domestic workers.

ILO office in Maputo in collaboration with its counterparts in Brasilia, Luanda and Lisbon organized a two days workshop to discuss and share experiences on implementation of Decent Work Country program with emphasis on equality conventions 156-Workers with Family Responsibilities, 183-Maternity Protection and 189-Domestic workers.

The workshop was attended by 20 participants among them government (officials from Ministry of Labor and Ministry of Women), members of Labor Advisory Council-CCT, Employers organization-CTA and workers organizations (OTM.CS, CONSILMO with its respective women’s committees).

The main objective of the workshop was to discuss and share experiences of tri-partite social dialogue in Angola, Brazil, Portugal and Mozambique with regard to adoption, implementation and monitoring of C156, C183 and 189 in the context of Decent work Agenda.

During the discussions participants understood that similar challenges are faced by countries special with regard to protection of maternity and domestic work where the two issues are closely connected.

In Mozambique the problem of deficit in enjoyment of women workers rights is specially noticed in the private sector and the situation is worsened by the fact that the women workers have not enough knowledge of their rights. In the country there are three domestic organizations that organize training sessions for their members and sensitization campaigns targeting employers. Those organizations are actively involved in domestic workers agenda and mentioned that Mozambique is part of twelve countries that ITUC has prioritized to campaign for ratification of C.189. There are already national regulations on domestic work and this is good to encourage Government’s ratification of C.189. However domestic organizations face challenges with regard to development and capacity building.

Social partners in Mozambique were consensual in the need of grating domestic workers with maternity rights. However they consider the issue of wage as very sensitive as they are also employees and not all of them are in position to provide decent salaries to domestic workers.

In the end participants concluded that information sharing between countries is important and the fact that present countries communicate in same Portuguese language can contribute to facilitate collaboration particularly with regard to production of Information education and communication materials.

The workshop was organized through a collaboration of Mozambique DWCP support project and the BASIC project III that involve Portuguese speaking countries Angola, Brasil and Portugal.

The workshop was opened by Mr. Omar Jalilo General Secretary of Labor Advisory Committee-CCT in Mozambique.

By Ernesto Chamo