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LABOUR: ILO Denounces Race, Gender, Age, HIV/AIDS Discrimination

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 11 2003 (IPS) - Every minute, around the world, there are incidents of flagrant discrimination in the workplace against women, persons with HIV/AIDS, members of ethnic groups, the elderly and others, says the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a new report.

Creuza Maria Oliveira, president of the Brazilian National Federation of Domestic Workers, was taken at age nine from the countryside of to the capital of the northeastern state of Bahía by a family that promised to enrol her in school in exchange for being a "playmate" for the family’s young boy.

But Oliveira ended up cooking and cleaning house, and it was not until age 16, thanks to a government literacy programme, that she finally attended school.

Cases like hers illustrate the fact that women are the group most discriminated against in the labour sphere, as the ILO says in its first-ever state of world labour discrimination report – "Time for Equality at Work" – released here Monday.

Labour discrimination occurs when a person receives less favourable treatment due to his or her race, colour, sex, religion, political opinions, national or social origins, without taking into account merit and skill, says ILO expert Manuela Tomei, editor of the report.

These practices are reported in rich and poor countries alike. In Europe, for example, the vast majority of part-time workers are women – and part-time means not only less income but also fewer or no employee benefits.

Of the employed women in the Netherlands, 57.1 percent work reduced hours, compared to 13 percent of employed men. The proportions in Switzerland are 45.8 percent for women and 13 percent for men, and in Norway 42.4 percent of employed women and 9.7 percent of employed men work part-time.

In Britain, working women have a hard time accumulating pension savings because their wages are less than men’s on average and they do not generate contributions to the funds while they dedicate themselves to child rearing.

Julie Mellor, head of the Equal Opportunities Commission, calculates that British women’s pensions are around 53 percent of what their male counterparts receive.

The disastrous situation of the British pension system leaves millions of women living in poverty once they retire, says Mellor.

In the presentation of the ILO study, Tomei avoided providing an estimate of the number of people who suffer job discrimination worldwide, but the organisation’s director-general, Juan Somavía, said it is a "daily reality" for hundreds of millions of people.

Somavía noted that due to race or religion, and not to skills; to age, and not to ability; to colour, and not to competence, the doors to progress and well-being are closed to these people.

In Singapore, for example, the Cricket Club prohibited a British resident from bringing her family’s domestic employee to dine at the establishment.

Reports of the case in the local media triggered a public debate in that city-state about the right of domestic workers to enter private sporting or social clubs.

The tendency of local employers, in choosing a domestic employee, is to opt for Indonesian women because they will work for lower wages and "complain less" then Filipina women, Eddy Chua, owner of a Singapore hiring agency, says in an interview cited in the ILO study.

Tomei said there is increasing concern about new and less visible forms of labour discrimination, particularly against handicapped individuals, the elderly, and persons with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, the precursor to AIDS).

In Mexico, the Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Centre reported that it had advised victims in 33 cases of individuals or groups who suffered job discrimination because they are HIV-positive.

The women known as "AIDS widows", who lost their husbands to the disease and have generally become heads of household, are "under suspicion" by employers because they are seen as an infection risk, attorney Beatriz Pacheco, of the women’s network Positive Citizens, told IPS.

This suspicion implies the "cruelty" of depriving the women of an income when they need it most, said Pacheco, who discovered five years ago that she was infected with HIV.

In the northwestern Brazilian state of Acre, a woman was held under arrest for several days for the mere fact that her husband had died of AIDS-related causes, the activist said.

Among people with disabilities, who represent seven to 10 percent of the world population, unemployment in some countries reaches 80 percent.

The portion of handicapped persons in Eastern Europe who were jobless increased dramatically in the 1990s due to economic recession and to the changes in labour policies following the collapse of the region’s socialist regimes.

The average wage of employed disabled individuals in Brazil is 45.8 percent less than the rest of the working population.

The problem of age discrimination, manifest in the difficulties of older people to find a job, is related to the general trend of ageing of the global population, varying according to country and region.

The average age of the world’s populations is rising as a result of health and social advances, and is generally greater in industrialised countries but is increasing fastest in developing nations.

In the year 2050, a third of the people in industrialised countries will be 60 or older, as will 19 percent of the people in the developing world, say population experts.

Women, who generally live longer than men, make up 55 percent of the global population over age 60, and 61 percent of those over 80.

The ILO warns that failure to confront discrimination and the "widening socio-economic inequalities" in the world’s labour markets would have "disastrous effects on national social cohesion, political stability, and hence growth."

"This may be the most challenging task of contemporary society, and it is essential for social peace and democracy," says the Geneva-based organisation.

"Time for Equality at Work" was produced under the mandate of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, adopted by the International Labour Conference in 1998.