Observation (CEACR) - adoptée 2008, publiée 98ème session CIT (2009)

Articles 3, 4, 6, 7 and 12 of the Convention. Debt bondage. The Committee refers to the comments that it has been making for over ten years under the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), concerning the problem of debt bondage affecting indigenous populations, and particularly in the Paraguayan Chaco. It notes that this problem was also examined in 2006 by the Conference Committee on the Application of Standards, which invited the Government, among other things, to seek the Office’s technical assistance in this connection. Furthermore, the Committee notes the report Debt bondage and marginalization in the Paraguayan Chaco, published by the ILO in September 2006, which was endorsed at seminars held separately with employers’ and workers’ organizations, and with the labour inspection services. According to this report, in agricultural establishments in the Chaco, many indigenous permanent or temporary workers receive a wage that is lower than the minimum wage or are compelled to buy products at excessive prices in the establishment’s store. In certain cases, this results in situations of permanent debt in which the worker concerned is likely to be compelled to stay in the service of the establishment against her or his will, under the menace of imprisonment. The findings of the report show that nearly 8,000 indigenous workers are victims of forced labour or are likely to become so. The report’s recommendations include the formulation of a plan of action to eliminate forced labour with a view to eradicating debt bondage in the Chaco, the opening of a regional labour office and the strengthening of inspection activities.

As the Committee emphasized in the observation that it made in 2007 under Convention No. 29, the national legislation contains provisions which, if they were properly applied in practice, would contribute to preventing the chronic indebtedness of indigenous workers.

The Committee is bound to express concern in view of the gravity of the persistent practices of debt bondage in the Paraguayan Chaco, which constitute not only violations of Conventions Nos 29 and 169, but also raise serious problems of application of Articles 3 (payment of wages in legal tender), 4 (partial payment of wages in kind), 6 (freedom of the worker to dispose of her or his wages), 7 (works stores) and 12 (payment of wages regularly) of Convention No. 95. It therefore requests the Government to provide detailed information on the measures adopted in the context of the follow-up to the ILO study referred to above, and particularly with a view to the formulation and implementation of a national action plan in order to bring an end to debt bondage in the country.

The Committee is raising other matters in a request addressed directly to the Government.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2009.]