SOLIDARITY FOR GLOBAL ACTION DAY

This is a media release from the InternationalTrade Union Confederation regarding solidarity with Swaziland's Global Day of Action.

At the end it gives links to further information about the activities of the campaign.

Solidarity Actions Around Independence Day Press Release: International Trade Union Confederation

Swaziland: International Solidarity Actions Around Independence Day

Brussels, 2 September 2010 (ITUC OnLine): Trade unions and other civil society groups around the world are organising solidarity actions starting on 6 September, Swaziland's independence day, to highlight the ongoing repression of workers' rights and the autocratic nature of the Southern African kingdom. King Mswati controls virtually everything in the country, press freedom is non-existent and meetings organised by civil society groups are often violently dispersed by the police. The country has existed under a "state of emergency" since 1973.

"The people of Swaziland have lived for far too long under the yoke of repression, and the country's trade unions are frequently singled out by the heavy hand of the state apparatus. Sustained and determined international pressure on the regime is needed to support Swazi campaigners for democracy and respect for fundamental rights, including for ILO standards which the country has ratified but never implemented," said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Despite international condemnation of the regime, including long-standing ILO criticisms over freedom of association, there are as yet no signs that the King and the small powerful elite associated with him are prepared to relax their iron grip on power. A new "Suppression of Terrorism Act" has been used to suppress legitimate dissent, political parties opposed to King Mswati's dictatorial policies have been banned and trade union leader Sipho Jele died in extremely suspicious circumstances after security forces violently broke up a peaceful May Day celebration this year. Jele was found hanging from the rafters in police custody on May 4, having been arrested for wearing a pro-democracy T-shirt. His funeral was violently interrupted by some 500 heavily-armed police, who arrested and detained several of the mourners present.

Trade unions in Southern Africa and many other parts of the world will be joining the call for the demands of democracy campaigners to be met, to bring about a genuine multi-party system, a proper separation of powers and full respect for ILO standards. Activities will be taking place on 6, 7 and 8 September, with the high-point being a planned march in Swaziland on the 7th.

International Day of Action leaflet: http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/Swaziland_action_day.pdf

ITUC Survey: http://survey.ituc-csi.org/+-Swaziland-+.html

To see the ITUC Webpage on Swaziland, with interviews, reports and video: http://www.ituc-csi.org/+-swaziland-+.html

‘SLAVE LABOUR’ RIFE IN SWAZILAND

Many people, including children, are forced to work without pay in Swaziland for members of the ruling elites.

And the Swazi law allows this to happen.

In effect a form of serfdom exists in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Swazis are forced to work without pay on projects determined by local chiefs (who are appointed by the king). These include agricultural work, soil erosion and construction and maintenance.

Swazis, seven in ten who live in abject poverty and earn less than one US dollar a day, are forced to work under the Swazi Administration Order, No. 6 of 1998, which makes it a duty of Swazis to obey orders and participate in compulsory works; participation is enforceable with severe penalties for those who refuse.

This is allowed even though the Swaziland Constitution that was enacted in 2006 prohibits forced or compulsory labour.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in a report released this week says the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) has called the administration order a form of forced labour which reinforces the traditional powers of chiefs to demand uncompensated labour from citizens and apply punishment in case of refusal.

The ITUC says that although statistics are not collected there is a lot of evidence to show that people are trafficked for forced labour in Swaziland.

‘It is believed that trafficking in girls and women largely concerns cases of domestic servitude and prostitution and in men and boys, forced labour in commercial agriculture and market vending,’ the report says.

The problem of trafficking in Swaziland was highlighted by the United States in August 2009 when it threatened to withdraw up to 200 million dollars in aid unless Swaziland enacted a law to outlaw trafficking.

As I reported in June 2009, women and children in Swaziland are bought and sold for sex, domestic servitude and forced labour, Swazi boys are trafficked for forced labour in commercial agriculture and market vending. Some Swazi women are forced into prostitution in South Africa and Mozambique after voluntarily travelling to these countries in search of work

After the threat from the Americans, the Swazi Government has passed a law in an attempt to curb trafficking.

The ITUC also reported that Swaziland has the worst record on workers’ rights in the Southern African Customs Union region.

SWAZIS WORST FOR WORKER RIGHTS

Swaziland has the worst record on workers’ rights in southern Africa.

Things are so bad there is child labour and forced labour throughout the kingdom.

A report just published by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) says the law in Swaziland restricts workers’’ rights to organise and restricts trade union rights to collective bargaining. Freedom of association is also severely restricted.

‘In Swaziland, the law does not allow strikes, and the police use excessive violence to repress any strikes that take place, arresting unionists and their leaders and using torture to obtain information,' the ITUC found.

The trade union leadership faces civil liability for damages or income losses caused during a strike and the police have made excessive use of violence to repress strikes, the report says.

The ITUC studied all countries in the Southern African Customs Union (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland) and found Swaziland stood out as the ‘worst offender’ by a long way.

The Afrol news agency from Norway says the ITUC found the exploitation of child labour in all the SACU members remains an unrecognised problem, largely due to social norms that tolerate and foster it. Except for South Africa, governments are insufficiently active in addressing the problem. Child labour is found chiefly in informal economic activities and in agriculture, while child prostitution and trafficking are also reported in the entire region.

The report says there has been some progress on the issue of forced labour in SACU countries, with the exception of Swaziland where the government has institutionalised forced labour on the ‘grounds of tradition’ in order to build infrastructure or undertake cultivation at no cost [for example, weeding the gardens of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch]. Current laws provide for the duty of Swazis to ‘obey orders and participate in compulsory works.’ Participation is enforceable with severe penalties for non-compliance.

While all of the SACU member states are found to violate core labour rights, the ITUC team was especially shocked by standards in Swaziland, whose government seemed to categorically violate all labour rights.

SWAZI REPRESSION IS BASED ON FEAR

The following is extracted from Union View No 13, May 2009, published by the International Trade Union Confederation.

Swaziland’s royal-appointed political leadership is cautious. Rather than employing the heavy hand of violent oppression which has earned the [Robert] Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe international condemnation and isolation, the ruling clique prefers more subtle measures to silence the voices of political opposition.

Activists are hauled in and held in detention for days then released without charge, meetings are banned or broken up by the police with beatings rather than shootings, government critics complain they are denied promotions, their children refused scholarships, passports are withheld and families are threatened with eviction from their ancestral land.

The coercion is rarely of a level to attract international headlines, but the persistent harassment risks sapping the spirit of the beleaguered pro-democracy movement.

Swaziland had boasted it had no political prisoners. That changed when Mario Masuku, leader of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), was jailed in November under the Suppression of Terrorism Act introduced by the government last year following an explosion at a road bridge near the king’s palace that killed two alleged bombers.

Political parties are banned in Swaziland. Although elections were held in September [2008], candidates could only run as individuals. Ten members of the 65-seat National Assembly, Anglicans, Lutherans and other denominations, had planned a rally in Manzini on March 14 [2009] to demand free schooling, but police banned it at the last minute.

Many Swazis are deeply frustrated that their country’s plight gets so little international attention.

They feel the royal authorities have succeeded in presenting the country as a ‘quaint’ anomaly where ancient practices – symbolised by the Umhlanga festival [Reed Dance] where tens of thousands of bare-breasted maidens dance before the king – co-exist peacefully with an indigenous version of democracy.

But unless pressure is brought to bear to bring about a real change, many fear the situation will could get much worse.

In October [2008] the king appointed hard-line royalist Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini as prime minister. Reformists who remembered Dlamini’s strong-arm tactics during a previous stint in power were dismayed.

In the face of the government clampdown, progressive forces come together to resist. Trade unions, political parties and churches formed the Swaziland United Democratic Front, modelled on the United Democratic Front (UDF), which spearheaded the fight against apartheid in South Africa. An even wider selection of civil society makes up the Coalition of Concerned Civil Organizations set up after the government evicted two chiefs and hundreds of their subjects in order to give their land to one of the king’s brothers. The eviction was carried out despite a ruling against it from the Supreme Court.

Although the pro-democracy movement enjoys broad-based support, many Swazis believe they need more outside help to force the royal establishment to accept reform. The Congress of South African Trade Union’s (COSATU) has taken a lead by occasional blockades of the border crossings on which the Swazi economy depends, but Swazis complain their little country is ignored by the wider international community.

To see the full article and the publication it is from click here.