Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1996, published 85th ILC session (1997)

1. The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government in its report, and particularly the Government's statements concerning the activities of the Association of Women in Undertakings (ASSOMEL) to promote equality of opportunity and treatment without discrimination on the ground of sex.

2. Having noted the particularly low number of women employed in the public service in 1988, the Committee in its previous comments requested the Government to provide it with information on the development of the situation since 1988. In its report the Government states that there are no new statistics to transmit to the Committee. The Committee therefore hopes that the Government will be in a position to supply information in its next report on developments in the employment of women in the public service, as well as recent statistics on the number of women employed there and their distribution at the various levels of responsibility.

3. Article 2 of the Convention. The Committee notes that the Government has not provided any information concerning the effective implementation of the principles set out in the Convention, namely the declaration and perusal of a national policy designed to promote equality of opportunity and treatment in respect of employment and occupation. It recalls that the mere declaration of the principle of equality in the Constitution or the legislation is not sufficient to ensure its application in practice. Indeed, certain forms of discrimination are not principally caused by a desire to discriminate or by the provisions of laws or regulations, but by behaviour, attitudes and manifestations of prejudice against which action should be taken under the national policy (see Chapter IV of the General Survey on Equality in Employment and Occupation of 1988). The Committee therefore reiterates its request for information on any measure that has been taken or is envisaged in the context of a national policy to ensure the effective promotion of equality of opportunity and treatment, irrespective of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, as well as on the results achieved, particularly with regard to: (a) access to vocational training and, in particular, the number and percentage of men and women who have benefited from the vocational training provided by the various training establishments set up under Decree No. 30/91 of 5 July 1991, and the number of women trained by the Organization of Women of Angola (OMA); (b) access to employment and to particular occupations; and (c) terms and conditions of employment, and particularly the measures taken to promote equality of opportunity and treatment.

4. Noting that, according to the Government's report, the labour inspectorate is responsible, through inspections of enterprises, for the application of the Convention, the Committee requests the Government to provide detailed information on the action taken in practice by labour inspectors for the effective application of the provisions of the Convention.