Discrimination Convention, 1958 (No. 111)

ILO Convention No. 111 addresses gender discrimination through labor institutions, extending equal opportunity across training, recruitment and working conditions.

Convention No. 111, adopted in 1958, extends employment discrimination to vocational training, occupational access and working conditions. The question is not only whether an advertisement excludes women, but whether a distinction, exclusion or preference impairs equal opportunity or treatment.

Article 1 names race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction and social origin. National extraction should not be silently rewritten as every nationality rule. Members may define further grounds through consultation. Disadvantage can accumulate while acquiring skills, entering a sector and remaining in employment, not just at contract signing.

The convention permits distinctions based on a particular job’s inherent requirements. Such requirements nevertheless need justification; an assumed employee without care obligations should not become neutral competence by definition. Conversely, special protection or assistance addressing particular needs is not automatically discriminatory. Identical treatment and substantive equality are therefore different questions.

Articles 2 and 3 call for national policy, legislation, education, revision of administrative practices, public employment measures and reporting. Responsibility extends beyond an individual applicant proving injury to the institutions producing opportunity. Treaty obligations do not establish effective remedies everywhere, and this conceptual reading cannot determine particular domestic cases or exceptions.

Acker’s organizational theory examines the body and life presumed by apparently gender-neutral jobs. Convention No. 100 focuses on work valuation and remuneration. Reading them together distinguishes equality commitments, evaluation procedures and actual outcomes.