Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1998, published 87th ILC session (1999)

Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105) - Jordan (Ratification: 1958)

The Committee has taken note of the information provided by the Government in its 1995 and 1997 reports. It has noted that, since the revocation of martial law in 1991, the Political Parties Act, 1992 (No. 32), and the Press and Publications Act, 1993 (No. 10), have been adopted, and that they contain provisions which could lead to restrictions on the freedoms of opinion, expression and association.

The Government indicated previously that, even where prisoners are sentenced to penalties of imprisonment involving an obligation to work, the penalty of imprisonment is applied in practice without an obligation to work, since Jordanian prisons are not equipped for this. The Government states that forced labour is not used in practice and that prisons in Jordan have been converted into "rehabilitation centres": this measure will have legal effect as soon as the constitutional procedures have been completed to promulgate the draft Rehabilitation Centres Act, which will supersede the Prisons Act, 1953 (No. 33).

With reference to its direct request of 1997 under Convention No. 29, the Committee trusts the Government will soon be in a position to give statutory effect to the practice whereby no compulsory labour is imposed on persons imprisoned for activities coming within the scope of the present Convention. It requests the Government to supply a copy of the Rehabilitation Centres Act, as soon as it is promulgated.