Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2002, published 91st ILC session (2003)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Togo (Ratification: 1983)

The Committee notes the Government’s report.

1. With reference to its previous direct request, the Committee notes from the Government’s report that a list of the different posts with an indication of the qualifications required is attached to each collective agreement. Noting that no copies of collective agreements have been supplied, the Committee hopes that the Government will include in its next report copies of such agreements, including the annexes, to enable the Committee to determine whether gender stereotypes or any other kind of gender bias have occurred in the appraisal of the posts listed in the annexes to the agreements. It also hopes that the interoccupational collective agreement will be negotiated soon and that there will be no differential between men and women workers in the granting of travel allowance.

2. The Committee hopes that progress will be made soon in the adoption of the final draft of the Labour Code and that it will contain provisions which implement the Convention. Please provide the Office with a copy once it is adopted.

3. The Committee notes that the Government’s report does not contain any information on the results achieved by its efforts to promote the participation of women in the labour market and on the activities of the Ministry for the Advancement of Women and Social Protection. It hopes that the Government will be in a position to provide such information in its next report, as well as the statistics requested on the average earnings of men and women in public or private enterprises, in accordance with the General Observation of 1998 concerning this Convention.

4. The Committee notes the Government’s statement that it has re-established the National Council for Labour and Social Legislation, which is a body for dialogue and tripartite cooperation through which, henceforth, the collaboration intended by Article 4 of the Convention will operate. It asks the Government to indicate the concrete activities through which the National Council promotes the implementation of the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value.

5. The Committee notes that for the seventh consecutive year the Government continues to declare that the Inspectorate for Labour and Labour Legislation has not observed any difficulties in the application of the Convention. It refers the Government once again to paragraph 253 of its General Survey of 1986 on equal remuneration in which it emphasizes that by its nature, by the way in which it develops, and as a result of the equivocal character of discrimination with regard to remuneration, the application of the principle contained in the Convention will necessarily give rise to difficulties. The Committee trusts that the Government will make every effort to provide information, in its next report, on the manner in which the Inspectorate for Labour and Labour Legislation enforces the principle of equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value. It also hopes that the Government will consider holding courses on international labour standards, particularly on Convention No. 100, for example, in the context of the inspectors’ training programme, and will undertake whatever other measures deemed appropriate to strengthen the capacity of the labour inspectors to detect, investigate and remedy inequalities between men and women with respect to remuneration.