Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2018, published 108th ILC session (2019)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Sierra Leone (Ratification: 1968)

Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention. Application of the principle of equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value in law. The Committee notes from the Government’s report that the labour legislation is currently under review and, more specifically, that a draft Labour Act, which reflects the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value, was prepared in 2017 and submitted to the ILO for technical comments. Welcoming the inclusion of the principle of the Convention in the draft Labour Act, the Committee hopes that the Act will be adopted soon and requests the Government to provide a copy once it has been adopted. The Committee also requests the Government to take the necessary measures to raise awareness of the principle of equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value among workers, employers, labour officials and judges, such as disseminating training material and organizing specific training sessions.

Minimum wage. The Committee recalls that the determination of a minimum wage can be an important means to address the gender pay gap, as it sets a floor for the wage structure to protect low-wage earners and women are often disproportionately represented in lower paid jobs. Therefore, the Committee welcomes the adoption and implementation of an increased minimum wage since 1 January 2015, as indicated in the Government’s report.

Job evaluation. Public sector. The Committee welcomes the approval by the Government of the Multi-Year Public Sector Pay Reform Strategy (2011–15) in 2011. The Committee notes that, according to the information available on the website of the Public Sector Reform Unit, the Strategy outlines a comprehensive approach to reforming public sector pay over the five-year period. The Strategy recognizes that remuneration should be commensurate with the responsibilities of the job, which necessitates the completion of a comprehensive job evaluation and grading exercise before enhanced pay is introduced in a new pay structure. In this regard, a Pay and Performance Project (PPP) supported by the World Bank was launched in 2012 with one of its objectives being “to improve internal equity in pay setting, thereby enabling the Civil Service to attract and retain qualified professionals”. The Committee would like to recall that whatever methods are used for the objective evaluation of jobs, particular care must be taken to ensure that they are free from gender bias. It is important to ensure that the selection of factors for comparison, the weighing of such factors and the actual comparison carried out are not discriminatory, either directly or indirectly. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the progress made in the job evaluation exercise and the establishment of a new pay structure and to indicate how it is ensured that this evaluation is free from gender bias and that skills typically identified with women are not overlooked or undervalued.

Statistics. The Committee welcomes the publication in September 2015 of the Labour Force Survey Report, which analyses the national labour market. The report shows that, overall, women participate in the labour market almost as much as men (64.7 per cent for women and 65.7 for men). However, women are much less likely than men to be in wage employment (4.5 per cent versus 15.5 per cent among men) and they represent 36.8 per cent in non-agricultural self-employment (24.8 per cent for men). Observing that the Survey does not provide information on the remuneration of workers, the Committee requests the Government to provide any recent information available on the remuneration levels of men and women in the public and private sectors with a view to evaluating the gender pay gap.