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The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous direct request, which read as follows:

1. Article 2 of the Convention. In its previous comments the Committee noted that, according to the Government, the statistics provided by the Directorate-General of Statistics, Surveys and Censuses, indicated that women are paid less than men and that access to secondary and higher education affords no guarantee that women will be paid on a par with men who have the same level of education. It also noted that the indicators established to evaluate fulfilment of the objectives of the Second Plan for Equality of Opportunity between Men and Women 2003–07 were to include wage differentials, allowing trends in the wage gap between men and women workers to be monitored. The Committee notes with regret that the Government has not sent information on this matter. It notes that the Tripartite Committee on Equal Opportunities (CTIO) implemented a number of measures to help to reduce the wage gap between men and women. They include promoting machinery for the reporting of discrimination, awareness raising to promote understanding of inequalities and facilitate initiatives to remedy them, and providing information on how women’s work comes to be underrated. The Committee asks the Government to continue to provide information on activities to promote the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value, and particularly on the measures taken or envisaged to reduce the wage gap, and on the results arising from the evaluation of the abovementioned national plan. The Committee reminds the Government that in 2000 it noted a wage gap in Paraguay of 30 per cent on average, reaching 50 per cent in some instances, and urged the Government to step up efforts, together with the social partners, to identify wage differentials and their possible causes, to pursue implementation of measures adopted, or envisage measures, to reduce the wage gap and to keep the Committee informed in this respect.

2. Labour Directorate. The Committee once again asks the Government to provide information in its next report on the activities of the Labour Directorate, including contraventions noted and penalties imposed, to enable the Committee to assess more accurately how the Convention is applied in practice.