AFRICA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

117
ciation and permitted the authorities to oversee associations’ funds. The Government
allegedly applied this law to unions on several occasions despite assurances
that only the Labor Code would govern the unions; there were no reports of such
action during the year. The International Labor Organization (ILO) Committee of
Experts has cited the Government for its denial of the right to establish an organization
without prior approval. The Committee noted that Ordinance No 27 regulating
associations subjects the establishment of associations to the Ministry of the
Interior who had extensive power to oversee the management under penalty of dissolution.
The unions were supportive of the opposition and played a limited role in the legislative
election campaign. In 2001 they had a much more active role in the presidential
election campaign. The Government applied some pressure on the unions
after the election, urging them to go back to focusing on labor issues rather than
politics.
The Labor Code protects unions against antiunion discrimination, but there was
no formal mechanism for resolving such complaints.
Labor unions have the right to affiliate internationally. The UST affiliates with
the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively.—The Constitution contains
only general provisions for the rights of the Government to set minimum wage
standards and to permit unions to bargain collectively. The Labor Code has specific
provisions on collective bargaining and workers’ rights. The Labor Code authorizes
the Government to intervene in the bargaining process under certain circumstances.
The Constitution recognizes the right to strike, and the Government generally respected
this in practice. The law permitted imprisonment with forced labor for participation
in strikes; however, there was no such punishment during the year. During
the year, there were legal and illegal strikes in various sectors, particularly
postal services, petroleum, and education.
There were no export processing zones.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Bonded Labor.—The Constitution and the Labor Code
prohibit forced or bonded labor, including by children; however, there were reports
of forced labor practices in the formal economy and isolated instances of forced labor
by both children and adults in the rural sector by local authorities as well as in
military installations in the north. In 2000 a local newspaper reported that workers
in the National Sugar Company of Chad, the sugar parastatal, were forced to work
but were not paid. Some young girls were forced into marriages by their families;
these girls then were forced to work in their husbands’ fields or homes (see Section
5). There were reports that Zaghawas were conscripted forcibly into the armed
forces throughout the year. In December 2000, security forces in N’Djamena reportedly
rounded up army deserters and other individuals described as bandits, sent
them to the northern military front, and forced them to fight alongside government
troops. Ordinances of the law permitted forced labor imprisonment for participation
in strikes, which the ILO has requested the Government to repeal; however, the ordinances
were not repealed by year’s end.
Abusive and exploitative child labor existed and affected an estimated 20 percent
of children between the ages of 6 and 18 years of age.
In September the quasi-official National Commission on Human Rights wrote a
letter of protest to the Prime Minister concerning reports of children being sold and
exploited in Koumra and other cities in the Mandoul region. The Commission asked
local and national authorities to put an end to this problem and called for the creation
of a special team to investigate and fix responsibilities. No action was taken
by year’s end.
d. Status of Child Labor Practices and Minimum Age for Employment.—The
Labor Code stipulates that the minimum age for employment in the formal sector
was 14 years; however, the Government did not enforce the law in practice. The
labor law provides that anyone under the age of 18 is a child and prohibits children
from undertaking ‘‘any work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it
was carried out, was likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.’’ According
to a 2000 UNICEF study, 65.5 percent of minors worked, including those performing
domestic chores for more than 4 hours per day, those working within the
family (herding, microcommerce, etc.), and those who worked for someone outside
the family but who were underage. One out of 5 children between 6 and 18 years
of age worked in the urban informal sector. Throughout the country, children
worked in agriculture and herding during the year. Children were also employed in
the commercial sector, particularly in the capital, as street vendors, manual laborers,
and helpers in small shops. Young girls worked as domestic servants, again
mainly in N’Djamena.
VerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:43 Jul 22, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00147 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 86917.003 SFRELA2 PsN: SFRELA2