By Kaveesha Coswatte

C190, the Violence and Harassment Convention of the International Labour Organisation is considered to be of great historical importance since it is essentially the very first international convention that condemns, without any compromise, any and every form of violence and harassment in the world of work. In its essence, it is wholly focused on the right of each individual regardless of gender, race, or any other grounds, to work in a healthy work environment free from all forms of violence and harassment, be it gender-based violence and harassment, mental or physical violence, etc. This is due to the fact that such violence and harassment are believed to constitute a violation of human rights and a constant threat to decent working conditions.  However, it cannot be enforced in a country without ratification as Conventions remain international treaties that only become legally binding once they are ratified by the relevant state and brought into their legal system through enabling legislation. As a dualist country, which requires such a process, Sri Lanka has yet to ratify C190.

However, is there a need to ratify this Convention in Sri Lanka? Sri Lanka has historically had a large informal economy. As per the Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey of 2016, our informal sector contributes an estimated 60.2% of total employment and presently it sits at around 70% of the total employment. A high percentage of workers in this sector are self-employed, rounding off to around 49.6% of the total employment. The other main worker population is found within the agriculture sector, accounting for 87.5% of the total employment. Despite being a large contributor to the workforce of the island, employees in the informal sector continue to be at risk of loss of employment and live in constant fear of fickle job security, while being made to tolerate unsafe social security schemes and a very limited set of rights.

While there are a working set of labour laws within the country subject to amendments seeking to provide relief to the Lankan employee base, such as the Termination of Employment of Workmen Act, for example, these laws have only ensured job security of the permanent employees working within the formal sector. This gap in the law, coupled with the current pandemic situation ravaging the country and its economy, informal sector workers have become more and more dispensable, were due to the economic difficulties faced by employers, many casual workers, daily laborers, domestic workers, or any employee working on a temporary basis have lost their jobs. This situation has come to create a life of constant agitation and pain for many such individuals, who are left in a state of not being able to provide one meal for themselves and their families. In this context, the need to bring about C190 becomes a top priority for the State.

It is not uncommon to hear increasingly hopeless stories coming from workers for the informal sector. Many farmers who are left without a buyer to buy their harvest on time, scarcity of necessary fertilizers within the market, express that they ponder on ending their lives. Domestic workers have resorted to working for meals instead of money in order to provide for their loved ones. Some such workers express that they are the sole breadwinners of their family, or is the mother in a woman-led household. Such conditions open avenues for loss of life, theft, and other related criminal behavior as well.

In addition to the aforementioned issues at hand, informal sector workers remain a key unprotected community who fall victim to violence and harassment in their workplace. Both men and women, fall victim to such violence. Due to the largely unregulated nature of their work, wages are changed arbitrarily by employers, no proper hygiene, sanitation, safety facilities, and procedures are instilled, and there are no formal hours of work recognized. Many male workers expressed that they have been injured during work, or are experiencing a lifelong deformity or sickness arising from the work they engage in. For female domestic workers, sexual harassment, rape, physical abuse and even harassment that happens virtually is a common experience. Essentially, they are a worker base that works depending on the whim and mercy of their employer, primarily due to the lack of laws to come to their aid when needed, and the fact that they are stigmatized as being uneducated and unintelligent individuals by society.

The C190 becomes of imperative significance in remedying this plight. The recognition of Economic and Social Rights as part of universal human rights and the resulting plethora of international conventions have existed through time, but no such convention other than C190 so boldly states that violence and harassment in the world of work is, unrefutably, a human rights violation; a major threat to equal opportunities in the labor market; a regularly exploited loophole of unacceptable conditions that contradicts the principle of decent work. It acts as a persistent menace upon a person’s psychological, physical, and emotional health, dignity, family, and social environment. For the enforcement of C190, the status of the worker does not matter, as per Article 2 of the Convention, it applies to all sectors, whether private or public, both formal or informal, and whether set in an urban or rural setting.

Working off of this premise, it would extend its protection to all workers, regardless of the status of the contract, be it a day laborer, farmer, freelancer, or casual hire. The Convention also offers a much wider definition of the ‘workplace’. It takes into account not just the place of work, or place of work-related events, but also places where the worker is paid, rests, uses sanitary facilities, even out of the immediate workplace, and also the standards of work-related communication, accommodation provided by the employer and transport options of the worker as well. Furthermore, as part of C190 through Recommendation 206, the workers’ right to unionize is also established. C190, would remove the obviously restricted mobility of informal workers and provide them with the same dignity and opportunities, and better social protection schemes.

It is no doubt, at this juncture, to understand that there is a pressing, persistent and immediate need to ratify C190 in our country then, so that we may afford the equal opportunity of a better life to those working in the informal sector, who toil without recognition or protection.b