The National Assembly (NA) on Monday ratified Convention 105 on Abolition of Forced Labor with 94.82 percent of NA deputies in agreement.
Vietnam will apply all contents of Convention 105 which was endorsed by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1957 in Geneva.
The Prime Minister will be responsible for organizing its implementation and instruct central and local-level offices to complete a legal system for realizing and disseminating the convention to people and businesses.
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| The National Assembly ratifies the Convention 105 on Abolition of Forced Labor__Photo: VNA |
The Government will ask relevant offices to complete procedures of the convention accession and notify the date on which it comes into force in the country.
The NA and its Standing Committee, the Ethics Council and other committees will take responsibility for monitoring the convention’s implementation.
The NA’s External Affairs Committee’s chairman Nguyen Van Giau said that most of the deputies agreed with the need for the convention which reflected the Party and State’s policy on reform and international integration.
The convention accession at this moment was suitable with the process of completing the market economic institution of Vietnam and matched the national interest and the Party and State’s consistent policy in ensuring human rights and civil rights and not accepting forced labor exploitation, Giau said.
Also, the contents of the convention do not contravene the provisions of Vietnam’s constitution, laws, and resolutions and ordinances of the NA and NA Standing Committee (NASC), the chairman said.
The deputies recommended that the Government should study and promulgate legal documents detailing acts of forced labor which will be a significant legal basis for the convention’s implementation, he added.
The Labor Code in 2019 has many provisions on force labor control which are similar to the ILO guidelines.
For example, Article 17 stipulates that employers were prohibited from keeping original copies of personal documents and educational and occupation certificates of employees, require employees to take security measures by depositing money or other properties during performance of labor contracts, and force employees to perform labor contracts to pay debts for employers.
Meanwhile, the Penal Code in 2015 regulates crimes of forced labor and human trafficking of people under 16 for forced labor activities.
In terms of administrative sanctions for forced labor activities, Decree 28/2020/ND-CP dated March 1, 2020 by the Government sets fines on violations of labor, social insurance and sending Vietnamese people to work overseas.
On Monday, the ILO congratulated Vietnam on its decision to ratify Convention 105 on the Abolition of Forced Labor.
The move will bring the total ILO fundamental conventions ratified by Vietnam to seven out of eight.
“Through this ratification, Vietnam was demonstrating its firm commitment to combating forced labor in all its forms,” said ILO Director of International Labor Standards Department, Corrine Vargha.
“This ratification is all the more important since the ILO’s global estimates show the urgency of adopting immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor,” said Vargha.
“Moreover, by ratifying the Convention, Vietnam is moving towards the achievement of decent work and the delivering at the country-level of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG target 8.7,” she added.
Forced labor can be understood as work that is performed involuntarily and under the menace of any penalty.
It refers to situations in which persons are coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation, or by more subtle means such as manipulated debt, retention of identity papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities.
Forced labor degrades human dignity and denies the worker the ability to pursue material well-being and spiritual development based on free will.
The prevention and combat against the use of forced labor in enterprises helps them avoid the risks of their products being rejected or boycotted by importing countries.
The non-use of forced labor in the production of goods or services is also considered the “laissez-passer” for the goods and services to get access to global markets.
“The Government and social partners have been making consistent efforts in bettering its legal framework to pave the way for Vietnam to move towards an upper-middle income country in a sustainable manner,” said ILO Vietnam Director, Chang-Hee Lee.
The ILO has eight core conventions, covering four key areas namely freedom of association and collective bargaining, forced labor, discrimination, and child labor.- (VNS/VLLF)
