Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2008, published 98th ILC session (2009)

The Committee notes that the Government indicates that the Convention is applied through section 202 of the 2004 Labour Code and by the Ordinance on the list of difficult occupations and occupations with harmful working conditions in which women may not be employed.

The Committee takes this opportunity to recall that, based on the conclusions and proposals of the Working Party on Policy regarding the Revision of Standards, the ILO Governing Body has decided that, with respect to underground work, the States’ parties to Convention No. 45 should be invited to contemplate ratifying the Safety and Health in Mines Convention, 1995 (No. 176), and possibly denouncing Convention No. 45 even though the latter instrument has not been formally revised (see GB.283/LILS/WP/PRS/1/2, paragraph 13). Contrary to the old approach based on the outright prohibition of underground work for all female workers, modern standards focus on risk assessment and risk management and provide for sufficient preventive and protective measures for mineworkers, irrespective of gender, whether employed in surface or underground sites. As the Committee has noted in its General Survey of 2001 on night work of women in industry in relation to Conventions Nos 4, 41 and 89, “the question of devising measures that aim at protecting women generally because of their gender (as distinct from those aimed at protecting women’s reproductive and infant nursing roles) has always been and continues to be controversial” (paragraph 186).

In the light of the foregoing observations, and also considering that the present trend is no doubt to remove all gender-specific restrictions on underground work, the Committee invites the Government to give favourable consideration to the ratification of the Safety and Health in Mines Convention, 1995 (No. 176), which shifts the emphasis from a specific category of workers to the safety and health protection of all mineworkers, and possibly also to the denunciation of Convention No. 45. In this respect, the Committee recalls that according to established practice, the Convention will be next open to denunciation during a one-year period from 30 May 2017 to 30 May 2018. The Committee requests the Government to keep the Office informed of any decision taken in this regard.