Bangladesh to ratify three ILO conventions: Labour adviser
Govt will amend the existing Bangladesh Labour Act by this month, he says
Bangladesh is set to ratify three conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) soon, said Labour and Employment Adviser Brig Gen (Retd) M Sakhawat Hussain.
Among the three, one is Convention 190 – an international treaty establishing the right to a world of work free from violence and harassment.
"Bangladesh will be the first country in South Asia to ratify this convention [190]," he said at a programme titled "Tripartite Conference on Effective Social Dialogue as a Lever for Inclusive and Sustainable Labour Reforms in Bangladesh: Benchmarks, Lessons Learned and Way Forward" held at a hotel in Dhaka today (8 October).
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He further stated that the government would amend the current Bangladesh Labour Act within this month. "Day before yesterday, we were able to finalise the amendments, and we hope to incorporate them into the Act within this month," he said.
"It was very difficult for us to bring all parties to the same table, but finally, we reached a consensus," said Sakhawat Hussain.
The event was jointly organised by the ILO Dhaka Office, Bangladesh Employers' Federation (BEF), Ministry of Labour and Employment, and the National Coordination Committee for Workers' Education (NCCWE), in association with the Embassy of Denmark in Dhaka and the European Union.
Christian Brix Møller, ambassador of Denmark to Bangladesh, speaking on behalf of the "Team Europe Initiative," identified three major challenges hindering social dialogue – inactive tripartite bodies, lack of collective bargaining, and weak or fragmented workers' organisations.
Other speakers included Max Tuñon, country director (Designate) of the ILO Bangladesh Office, Chowdhury Ashiqul Alam, chairperson of NCCWE, Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, president of BEF, Md Sanwar Jahan Bhuiyan, secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Employment and Khadija Khondker, senior programme officer at the ILO Dhaka Office.
Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmmed, chief of the Labour Reform Commission, presented the keynote paper titled "Social Dialogue in Bangladesh: Where Do We Stand and the Way Forward."
The two-day conference shared best practices from around the world on social dialogue to help strengthen effective mechanisms for Bangladesh's labour sector reforms. A significant number of labour leaders attended the programme.
