The Equal Rights Trust is pleased to announce the release of our latest report, A Promise Not Realised: The Right to Non-Discrimination in Work and Employment. This report is the outcome of a global research project implemented in partnership with and for the Solidarity Center’s International Lawyers Assisting Workers Initiative.
Drawing on the findings of a comparative analysis of the equality law frameworks in six countries - Brazil, Colombia, Great Britain, India, South Africa and Tunisia – and interviews with more than 80 experts, the report identifies and systematises the wide range of barriers which mean that the promise of non-discrimination at work remains unrealised. It makes specific, concrete recommendations for states on measures needed to strengthen their legal frameworks on equality to ensure non-discrimination in work and employment.
It is more than 65 years since the adoption of the International Labour Organisation Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, in which States undertook to “declare and pursue a national policy designed to promote (…) equality of opportunity and treatment in respect of employment and occupation, with a view to eliminating any discrimination in respect thereof”. Since its adoption, the Convention has been ratified by 175 States worldwide, while States have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to eliminating discrimination in work through the ratification of international human rights treaties and, more recently, the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, for all these developments, discrimination in work remains widespread. This report seeks to understand why.
The research for this report involved interviews with trade union representatives, civil society representatives, lawyers, academics, judges and representatives of public authorities from six different countries. Taken together, these experts identified more than 60 different factors which contribute to the persistence of discrimination in the workplace, ranging from gaps in legal provisions to lack of confidence in the system among rights-holders and from the challenges of collating suitable evidence through to the absence of preventative mechanisms in the legal framework.
Yet all of these barriers, obstacles, limitations and challenges can be understood as undermining one of a small number of essential prerequisites for the effective enjoyment of the right to non-discrimination in the workplace – what we call the preconditions for protection and prevention. We identified four such preconditions: (1) that work must be subject to the protection of the law; (2) that the law must provide comprehensive protection from all forms of discrimination; (3) that laws prohibiting dis crimination need to be effectively enforced; and (4) that laws must permit, mandate and require positive, proactive measures to prevent discrimination and promote equality. The report makes specific, targeted recommendations for reform in each of these areas.
The key findings of the report will be shared at a side event to the UN Commission on the Status of Women on 14 March 2024, and at an online discussion event on 21 May 2024.
