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

Workmen's Compensation (Accidents) Convention, 1925 (No. 17) - Rwanda (Ratification: 1962)

Article 2 of the Convention. Coverage of apprentices and casual and temporary workers against the risk of employment injury. The Committee notes the information provided by the Government in its report, including the law regulating labour in Rwanda, No. 13/2009 of 27 May 2009 (Labour Law) and the National Social Security Policy document of the Ministry of Financing and Economic Planning of February 2009. Section 2 of the new Labour Law provides that this law applies to the labour relations between workers and employers as well as between the latter and the apprentices or the trainees under their authority as per contract. Casual and temporary workers are included in the scope of application by virtue of section 3, while section 47 establishes the obligation of the employer to affiliate workers to the social security scheme. On the basis of the above sections of the newly adopted Labour Law, the Committee notes with satisfaction the extension of the national legislation on the protection against employment injury to apprentices and casual and temporary workers.

The Committee also welcomes the National Social Security document, which provides an analysis of the current social security programme and policy orientations for its improvement with the objective of achieving social security coverage for all. As regards employment injury, the policy document indicates the Government’s commitment to reinforce measures to establish 100 per cent coverage for employment injury of all workers in the formal sector. In the absence of coherent legal texts defining the basic social security framework, the policy document recommends a legal reform through an organic law, which will be guided inter alia by the provision that employment injury benefits are managed by the Rwanda Social Security Board and mandatory for all workers with a formal employment contract. The Committee asks the Government to continue providing information on the progress made in developing a legal framework for the social security system in Rwanda.