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Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1948 (No. 89) - Bolivia (Plurinational State of) (RATIFICATION: 1973)

Article 3 of the Convention. Prohibition of night work of women. The Committee has been drawing the Government’s attention to the fact that Convention No. 89 is widely criticized 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 2001 General Survey 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 Bolivia is a party since June 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 its last report, the Government indicates that the new Constitution, which was promulgated on 7 February 2009, establishes a new hierarchy among legal norms placing international treaties before national laws, statutes and decrees. The Government adds that in preparing the new General Labour Act, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Protection will consider the suggestions of the Committee. The review of the content and scope of each of the two instruments adopted in 1990 would clarify fundamental options of the new General Labour Act that is currently being drafted. In light of these observations, the Committee invites the Government in consultation with the social partners, to consider the possibility of ratifying the Night Work Convention, 1990 (No. 171), which applies to all night workers in all branches and occupations. The Committee requests the Government to keep the Office informed of any decision taken or envisaged in this regard.