Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2009, published 99th ILC session (2010)

Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1948 (No. 89) - Belize (Ratification: 1983)

Article 3 of the Convention. Prohibition of night work of women. The Committee has been drawing the Government’s attention to the fact that even though the national legislation may be in substantial conformity with the provisions of the Convention, Convention No. 89 has been severely criticized in recent years as being contrary to the overriding principle of gender equality and restricting the individual worker’s freedom of choice on working time solely on the basis of sex. For this reason, the International Labour Conference decided to partially revise the Convention by adopting the 1990 Protocol to Convention No. 89, and also adopted a new Night Work Convention, 1990 (No. 171), which no longer applies to a specific category of workers and sector of economic activity but to all night workers irrespective of gender in all branches and occupations. For the same reasons, the Committee has been inviting States parties to the Convention to ratify either the Protocol if they considered that women’s protection from the harmful effects and risks of night work was still relevant, or the new Night Work Convention if they were prepared to eliminate all restrictions on night work for women.

The Committee recalls, in this connection, paragraphs 168–169 of its General Survey of 2001 on the night work of women in industry, in which it noted that the full realization of the principle of non-discrimination requires the repealing of all laws and regulations which apply different legal prescriptions to men and women, except for those related to pregnancy and maternity. The Committee further recalled that member States are under an obligation to review periodically their protective legislation in light of scientific and technological knowledge with a view to revising all gender-specific provisions and discriminatory constraints. This obligation stems from Article 11(3) of the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (to which parenthetically Belize is a party since May 1990), as later reaffirmed in point 5(b) of the 1985 ILO resolution on equal opportunities and equal treatment for men and women in employment.

In light of these observations, the Committee invites the Government in consultation with the social partners, and in particular with women workers, to consider the possibility of ratifying the Night Work Convention, 1990 (No. 171), which is not devised as a gender-specific instrument but focuses on the protection of all night workers. It requests the Government to keep the Office informed of any decision taken or envisaged in this regard.