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1. The Committee notes that the Government's last report does not reply to the questions raised by the Committee in its previous comments.

2. The Committee once again expresses the hope that the next report will contain full information on the questions raised in its previous direct request, which read as follows:

In its previous direct request, the Committee referred to section 173 of the Contracts of Employment Act which prohibits night work for women, except in work of a non-industrial nature that is preferably to be performed by women. The Committee also noted that the services preferably to be performed by women include domestic service (Legislative Decree No. 326/56), day-and-night time ancillary staff in hospital establishments (Decree No. 11370/37), maids, linen mistresses and cloakroom attendants in hotels (Decree No. 91395/36), and air hostesses (Decree No. 24145/47).

The Committee takes note of the information supplied by the Government in its report, to the effect that the above-mentioned provisions do not make it compulsory for the employer to give preference to women over men and that such preference is a matter of prevailing custom, accepted morality and place.

The Committee wishes to refer to paragraphs 38 and following of its General Survey of 1988 on equality in employment and occupation, concerning types of discrimination based on sex, in which reference is made to occupational segregation according to sex, which leads to a heavy concentration of women in certain occupations and which is, to a large extent, the product of archaic and stereotyped concepts with regard to the respective roles of men and women. Such archaic and stereotyped concepts, which differ according to country, culture and customs, are at the origin of types of discrimination based on sex and all lead to impairment of equality of opportunity and treatment.

The Committee also pointed out (paragraph 118) that measures to put an end to the segregation of jobs and to deal with the problem of the supposedly female occupations are steps towards the implementation of Convention No. 111.

The Committee observes that the above provisions refer to certain activities preferably to be performed by women, thereby legally opening the way to a concentration of women in such activities and leading to the undervaluation of these jobs.

The Committee requests the Government to examine the provisions referred to in the light of the Convention, and to indicate the measures taken or contemplated to ensure that in so far as the principle of equality of opportunity and treatment in employment and occupation has to be reconciled with the prohibition of night work, existing regulations, in accordance with Article 5 of the Convention, are consistent with the provisions concerning protection in the same Convention and in other instruments, or with the recognised need to protect the persons concerned and do not depend, according to the economic sector in question, on criteria other than those provided for in the Convention, such as prevailing custom.

The Committee also requests the Government to indicate whether there are other jobs, in addition to those mentioned above, for which by law or in practice it is considered preferable that they be performed by women.