GOVERNMENT STRIVES TO ELIMINATE DISCRIMINATION IN EXISTING MAURITIAN LAWS

The Ministerial Committee in Charge of the harmonization study in view of eliminating all forms of discrimination in the existing Mauritian laws gathered today the Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment. The committee is chaired by the Attorney General Rama Valayden, and includes MinisterS Jean-François Chaumière, Rajesh Jeetah and Indira Seeburn who was represented by officials of her ministry at today’s session. Permanent secretaries and high cadres of several government departments and ministries, including the State Law Office, also attended the meeting.

Speaking to the press after the meeting, the Attorney General and Ministers Chaumiere and Jeetah explained that the various ministries are expected to submit all their findings on discrimination by next week, after which these will be circulated to all stakeholders for about a month. The amendments will then be brought to parliament gradually. It was also decided that the private sector should be taken on board in this process of eliminating discrimination

Backgrounder

The study was undertaken under the UNDP funded country project ‘Capacity Building for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women’ and was entrusted to a team of three consultants namely Professor V.P.Torul as team leader, Ms. G. Topsee-Sonoo and Ms O. Lim Tung. It aimed at identifying discriminatory statutes and provisions in the existing national legislation using the ILO Convention No. 111 on Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) – C111-, adopted in 1958, as benchmark. It has also taken into account other international instruments advocating equality of opportunity and non-discrimination such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The outcome of the study is meant to form part of the integral process of domesticating C111, ratified by Mauritius in 2002.

2. The research started in May 2006 and was completed in August 2007. It took into account national legislation in force as at 31 July 2007. The report was released to stakeholders in September 2008 for consideration of implementation of the recommendations. In essence, the report reveals the following:

(i) The Constitution of Mauritius makes provisions against all forms of discrimination specified in C111, CEDAW and CERD.

(ii) On the basis of Section 16(1) of the Constitution, which outlaws any discrimination based on sex, specific provisions of some legislation that are still discriminatory against women are therefore unconstitutional.

(iii) The Labour Act and Section 20 of the Industrial Expansion Act make specific distinctions between male and female workers as regards prescribed hours of work.

(iv) As far as Remuneration Orders (R.Os) are concerned, discriminatory features identified mainly relate to:

- job appellations with gender connotation;
- criteria for entitlement to transport benefits;
- restrictions on women to perform certain jobs and operations particularly in the agricultural sector, entailing a difference in wages and other allowances earned by male and female workers;
- different voluntary retirement age prescribed for men and women in certain sectors;
- different sets of privileges and benefits in relation to maternity.

(v) The National Pensions Act contains sex-based discriminatory provisions such as:

- at Section 4(1) of the Act, mention is made only of widow’s pension;
- in certain instances, allowances provided for in the Act are applicable to male beneficiaries only.
(vi) In the Criminal Code, Section 242 is considered discriminatory inasmuch as it gives the husband a defence in cases of manslaughter committed in the face of adultery.

(vii) The Mauritian Civil Code has also been found to contain discriminatory provisions, inter alia, with respect to:

- the transmission of patronymic name to children;
- wordings with gender connotation in various Articles.

(viii) Discriminatory provisions observed in other pieces of legislation are generally linked to the age factor, eligibility for various types of pensions and access to legal aid among others.

3. The report consists of two parts - Part I, concerning discrimination in the Mauritian body of law relating to Convention No. 111 and to additional grounds identified by the ILO as emerging prohibited grounds of discrimination following a general survey carried out in 1996; and Part II, concerning discrimination relating to other international instruments such as the CEDAW, CERD and ICCPR. Appendices I and II give a summary of the findings and recommendations found, respectively, at Part I and II of the report.