Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1990, published 77th ILC session (1990)

Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) - Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) (Ratification: 1944)

The Committee notes the Government's report.

1. Article 2, paragraph 2(c), of the Convention. The Committee has been referring for some years to sections 17, 21 and 23 of the Act of 1956, respecting vagrants and rogues, which empowers the administrative authorities to order internment in an establishment of rehabilitation and labour, an agricultural reformatory colony or a work camp, to reform vagrants and rogues or to put them out of harm's way. The Committee noted the information provided by the Government on various occasions since 1970, to the effect that the Congress of the Republic is studying a draft text to reform the Penal Code, section 113 which provides that security measures may be imposed only by the judicial authorities. The Committee asked for detailed information on the number of persons who had been the subject, during the past three years, of security measures involving the obligation to work, the duration of these measures and the establishments in which those concerned had been detained.

The Committee notes that, according to the Government's report, no further progress has been made in the revision of the Penal Code, and that the report does not contain the information requested concerning the application, in practice, of the provisions in question.

The Committee trusts that the Act respecting vagrants and rogues will be amended in the near future to ensure that the administrative authorities may not impose sanctions involving the obligation to work, thereby securing compliance with the Convention on this point.

2. The Committee has observed in previous comments that the Act concerning vagrants and rogues defines as vagrants, liable to be subjected to security measures, those persons, in particular, who habitually and unwarrantedly abstain from carrying on a lawful occupation or trade and are therefore a threat to society (sections 1 and 2(a)). The Committee has indicated that laws defining vagrancy and similar offences in an unduly extensive manner are liable to become, directly or indirectly, a means of compulsion to work, in violation of the Convention.

The Committee requests the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure a more restrictive definition of vagrancy in the Act concerning vagrants and rogues, so that penalities for vagrancy can be imposed only on those who, in addition to abstaining habitually from work, disturb the public order by begging, failing to support their dependents, or engaging in any specific illegal action in addition to abstaining from work, and that it will report on progress made in this regard.