Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2011, published 101st ILC session (2012)

Equality of Treatment (Accident Compensation) Convention, 1925 (No. 19) - Senegal (Ratification: 1962)

The Committee notes the Government’s report, received in September 2011. Pursuant to section 89 of the Social Security Code, pensions to victims of employment injury of whatever nationality are paid periodically at their residence in Senegal. However, if foreign workers and their dependants move their residence abroad, section 94 subjects them to a special treatment: instead of a pension they will be entitled to a lump-sum payment and their foreign dependants will not receive any compensation at all if they reside abroad at the time the employment injury occurred. The Committee observes that to the extent that these provisions apply only to foreign workers, they violate the principle of the equality of treatment established by the Convention. Paragraph 4 of section 94 provides, however, that foreign workers and their dependants from States that have concluded social security agreements with Senegal, or from States with legislation that provides Senegalese workers the same rights as to their nationals, are granted the same rights as Senegalese workers. Having not found in the text of the Social Security Code any provisions about the rights of Senegalese workers to benefits in case they move their residence outside the country, the Committee requests that the Government explain what paragraph 4 of section 94 cited above means by granting foreign workers the “same rights” as Senegalese workers.

The Committee notes that ratification of the Convention puts Senegal into the regime of automatic reciprocity with respect to the nationals of the other 120 States that have ratified it, without the need to conclude any bilateral agreements to this end. Furthermore, contrary to section 94(4), equality of treatment is not made conditional by the Convention upon the conclusion of bilateral social security agreements or the reciprocity in the legislation of other countries granting equal treatment to Senegalese nationals. The purpose of Article 1(2) of the Convention, to which the Government refers in its report, consists in ensuring that any administrative obstacle to the payments of the employment injury benefits abroad is eliminated through special arrangements between Senegal and the other countries that ratified the Convention. In this connection, the Committee refers to an ILO publication of 2010, International Migration Papers No. 100: Strengthening social protection for African migrant workers through social security agreements, which includes a database of the University of Sussex Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalization and Poverty with detailed numbers of migrants in Africa. This ILO publication states that there are about 250,000 African migrants in Senegal, almost half of them being from Guinea, followed by citizens from Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Cape Verde, Gambia, Morocco, Burkina Faso and Ghana. In turn, of the 266,000 Senegalese citizens that emigrated, about 98,000 left to Gambia, and to other countries such as Mauritania, Ghana, Gabon, Burkina Faso and Guinea. In light of these figures, and given the fact that migration from and to Senegal involves countries that ratified Convention No. 19, the Committee hopes that the Government understands the need to bring its national legislation and practice into full compliance with the regime of automatic reciprocity in granting equality of treatment to foreign workers as established by the Convention.