Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2014, published 104th ILC session (2015)

Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957 (No. 107) - Egypt (Ratification: 1959)

Article 1. Scope of the application of the Convention. In its previous comments, the Committee referred to the Report of the African Commission’s Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities, adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in November 2003, which mentioned that a Berber population existed in Egypt. The Committee also invited the Government to provide information regarding the Nubians and to indicate how many of the Bedouins continue to lead a nomadic lifestyle. The Committee invites the Government to indicate the groups of the national population which fall within the scope of the Convention and benefit from the measures designed to give effect to it, and to indicate the size of these groups and the regions of the country inhabited by them.

Articles 2 and 5. Coordinated and systematic government action. Collaboration and participation. In reply to previous comments, the Government states in its report that the State endeavours to know the aspirations and needs of the Bedouin population as well as formulate long-term plans for the development and rehabilitation of lands which lie within the regions in which they live, in addition to giving them the opportunity to establish economic projects for the development of such regions. The Committee invites the Government to provide specific information on the manner in which the collaboration and consultation of the populations concerned and their representatives is ensured in the design and implementation of measures affecting them and to provide information on such measures.

Revision of Convention No. 107. The Committee recalls that the Governing Body, at its 270th Session (November 1997), invited States parties to Convention No. 107 to contemplate ratifying the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), which will, ipso jure, involve the immediate denunciation of Convention No. 107 (document GB.207/LILS/3(Rev.1). The Committee invites the Government to include information on consultations held with the social partners on the possibility of ratifying Convention No. 169.