Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2006, published 96th ILC session (2007)

Sickness Insurance (Sea) Convention, 1936 (No. 56) - Peru (Ratification: 1962)

The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government in its report and the communications transmitted by the trade union of fishing boat owner-masters of Puerto Supe and Associates regarding the application of the Convention. The Committee notes that the Government gives no reply on the concerns expressed by the aforementioned trade union concerning, inter alia, problems concerning fishers’ sickness insurance, which, according to the trade union, leads to enormous difficulties of application in practice. The Government does not indicate whether it intends to reply favourably to the proposal made by the trade union to convene a round table to discuss social security problems in the industrial fishery industry. The Committee therefore trusts that the Government will reply as soon as possible to the aforementioned communication and also wishes to draw its attention to the following matter.

Article 4(1) of the Convention. Payment to the seafarer’s family of the whole or part of the cash benefit to which he or she would have been entitled had he or she not been abroad. In its previous comments, the Committee noted the information supplied by the Government regarding the possibility for a person who is abroad to be represented in order to authorize a third person to act on his or her behalf in Peru, in particular with the social security institutions. The Committee nevertheless considered that this procedure was not of a nature to give full effect to Article 4 of the Convention in that the Article requires the payment, as of right, that is, unconditionally, to the insured person’s family of the whole or part of the sickness benefit when the insured person is abroad and has lost the right to wages. In its latest report, the Government refers once again to the procedure for representation set out in the Civil Code without indicating whether measures have been taken or are envisaged to give effect to this provision of the Convention. The Committee therefore reiterates its request to the Government to re-examine the question and hopes that it will be in a position to inform the Committee in its next report of measures taken in this respect. Please also provide the information requested previously in regard to the benefits paid in practice to the families of insured persons who are abroad and have lost their right to wages.

The Committee is also raising certain other matters in a request directly to the Government.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2008.]