Joyce Mulama
NAIROBI, Feb 5 2007 (IPS) – Human rights campaigners have appealed to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to suspend Kenya s membership for continuing to resist efforts to reform its archaic labour laws.
The laws fail to address issues of employment, occupational health and safety or work injuries among others seriously undermining the constitutional rights of Kenyans.
On Dec. 14 last year, the independent Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC) wrote to the ILO calling for their country s suspension from the world body. The appeals were renewed recently.
In 2004, a task force appointed to review the country s labour laws recommended a series of changes that would address all aspects of workers rights including safety and health on the shop floor as well as compensation in the event of work injuries. Issues of sexual harassment, discrimination and wages were also covered.
According to KHRC, very little has been done with regard to implementation of the worker-friendly recommendations. The rights watchdog has constantly expressed strong displeasure over the delay which it points out has enabled employers to take advantage of the existing labour laws to exploit workers
This is anomalous delay. In the meantime, the repugnant labour regime framework continues to visit massive (infringement of) human rights of workers who do not have adequate protection under the (current) framework, which is a relic of the oppressive colonial administration, stated the letter that was given exclusively to IPS.
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Indeed, through its failure to enact reviewed laws relating to labour relations, occupational health and safety, and work injury benefits, Kenya is in contravention of Article 22 of the ILO constitution which enjoins it to give effect to the provisions of conventions to which it is a party, the letter adds.
The article in question requires that member states update the International Labour Office regularly on measures they have taken to enforce ILO conventions that they have ratified.
KHRC recommends that Kenya s membership to the ILO be suspended for failure to conform to the ILO conventions it is party to. We also propose that as part of this action, Kenya should be barred from participating in the next Annual ILO General Assembly in June 2007, added the letter. It was copied to the Attorney General (AG), Ministry of Labour and Human Resource Development, and trade unions, among others.
Even though ILO has not responded to the letter, Steve Ouma, KHRC s deputy executive-director, told IPS that they expected the letter would force the government into taking action by urgently enacting into law the worker-friendly recommendations of the task force instituted in 2001.
Kenyan officials confirmed that the government has been working on new labour laws. The recommendations, incorporated into five bills that are referred to as the draft labour laws, were presented to the cabinet, which approved them last week, according to Isaiah Kirigua, senior deputy labour commissioner in the Ministry of Labour and Human Resource Development.
The AG is expected to publish the bills for purposes of debate by parliament. We are all in consensus that this is a difficult year (given that the country will be facing elections) but we want law makers to appreciate that these are urgent laws. If we are able to get them through before year end, then everyone will be very happy, Kirigua noted.
Pressure on the government has grown since the recent publication of the findings of a new mission to establish the impact of investment on human rights in Kenya.
Conducted by the KHRC and the International Federation of Human Rights, researchers visited in December 2006 horticulture firms and export processing zones (EPZ), sectors that are dominated by foreign investors,
It emerged that the government was focusing far more on investment than workers rights, a situation perpetuated by the archaic labour laws and fiscal incentives enjoyed by EPZ. The incentives to woo investors include a 10-year tax holiday and a flat 25 percent tax for the next 10 years.
This disparity, experts said, has brought to the fore the concern that investments do not necessarily translate into improved welfare for workers in EPZs.
Conditions in the EPZ have not improved. We are still seeing people working over long hours with low wages without safety gear, no maternity leave for women, sexual harassment particularly of women who form the bulk of employees in the EPZs, and workers being maintained as casual labourers for years, Ouma said.
In 2004, KHRC published a book, The Manufacture of Poverty: The Untold Story of EPZ in Kenya , detailing deplorable working conditions in EPZs. Three years down the line, little seems to have changed, although Jonathan Chifallu, the EPZA spokesman insisted, EPZ wages are 20 to 25 percent higher than those of domestic territory .
I work 12 straight hours, no break, and earn peanuts for it about 71 dollars per month. Most women have to perform sexual favours for their employers in order to keep their jobs. We cannot leave because we desperately need the jobs, said Jane, a worker in a firm in one of the EPZs who preferred to be identified by one name for security reasons.