Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2012, published 102nd ILC session (2013)

Sickness Insurance (Agriculture) Convention, 1927 (No. 25) - Haiti (Ratification: 1955)

General situation. According to the Government’s report, the Act of 28 August 1967 establishing the Employment Injury, Sickness and Maternity Insurance Office (OFATMA) covers all dependent workers, regardless of the sector of activity. With regard to the agricultural sector, the report specifies that, while agricultural workers are not excluded by the Act, they cannot benefit because of the predominance of family farming and the absence of agricultural enterprises. The Committee also notes that over 95 per cent of the active population in Haiti is engaged in the informal economy. The Committee also notes that under the 1967 Act, the OFATMA currently manages employment injury insurance, but that it has still not been possible to set up a sickness insurance scheme.

In this context, the initiatives indicated by the Government mainly address the training of labour inspectors and the construction of two hospitals in the north and south of the country. The Committee also notes the Government’s statements that it plans to continue its efforts, on one hand to progressively establish a sickness insurance branch covering the population as a whole and, on the other to enable the OFATMA to regain the trust of the population. The Committee takes due note of these points. In order to better assess the challenges facing the country in the application of the social security Conventions and support the initiatives taken in this regard more effectively, the Committee requests the Government to provide further information in its next report on the reasons for the population’s loss of trust in the OFATMA, and to provide key figures on the operation of the employment injury insurance scheme administered by the OFATMA (numbers covered, amount of contributions collected annually, number of employment accidents and occupational diseases recorded, amount of benefits paid for employment injury).

International assistance. The Committee notes that the Government’s actions receive substantial support from the ILO and the international community, particularly in terms of labour inspection. In addition, since 2010, the ILO and the whole of the United Nations system have made available to the Government their expertise for the establishment of a social protection floor. The Committee also notes that Better Work, a joint ILO and International Finance Cooperation programme, operating in the textile sector in Haiti with a view to improving both working conditions and productivity, has noted that the failure to pay social security employment injury and old-age pension contributions was a widespread phenomenon in the textile industry and it prioritized this issue. Through targeted actions and, in particular, the organization of information meetings of the National Old-age Insurance Office (ONA) in the enterprises concerned, Better Work, in its biannual report of October 2012, noted a significant improvement in the payment of social security contributions to the ONA and the OFATMA. The Committee invites the Ministry of Labour and the OFATMA to take these targeted actions regarding contributions into consideration with a view, where appropriate, to their replication in other sectors of the formal economy in Haiti.

Regarding the establishment of a social protection floor, the Committee considers that it is necessary for the Government to envisage as a priority establishing mechanisms to provide the population as a whole, including informal workers and their families, with access to essential health care and a minimum income when their earnings capacity is affected. In this respect, the Committee emphasizes that, in order to provide guidance to States where the social security systems are facing difficulties in light of the national economic and social situation and to guarantee respect for the right of everyone to social security, the International Labour Conference adopted the Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), with a view to the establishment of all the basic social security guarantees to prevent and alleviate poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion. In this connection, the implementation of Conventions Nos 12, 17, 24, 25 and 42 and of Recommendation No. 202 should continue in parallel, seeking and exploiting synergies and complementarity.

The Committee recalls in this regard that the establishment of a social protection floor has been included by the Haitian Government as one of the elements of the Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti, adopted in March 2010. However, since then this objective appears not to have led to the development of a national policy on the subject. Recalling that the Office’s technical assistance, coordinated with that of the United Nations system as a whole, has been made available to the Government, the Committee invites it to provide information in its next report on the initiatives taken with a view to establishing a social protection floor.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2013.]