Employment
A 2001 Labour Proclamation coexisting with indefinite conscript labour
Labour Proclamation 118/2001 provides conventional employment protections for the formal sector. Its significance is limited by indefinite national service, which the ILO and UN bodies have characterised as forced labour.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — National, under the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare; labour relations boards hear disputes.
Governing law
- Labour Proclamation 118/2001
- Proclamation 82/1995 on national service
- ILO Convention 29 on Forced Labour — ratified by Eritrea
In practice
The 2001 Proclamation reads as an ordinary labour statute: contracts, hours, leave, termination, occupational safety, and provision for unions and collective bargaining under the National Confederation of Eritrean Workers. The controlling fact is elsewhere. National service under Proclamation 82/1995 was set at 18 months but has been extended indefinitely, with conscripts assigned to agriculture, construction, mining and civil administration at nominal pay and unable to leave. ILO supervisory bodies have examined this repeatedly under Convention 29, and the UN Commission of Inquiry treated it as enslavement amounting to a crime against humanity. Any statement that Eritrean employment is governed by the 2001 Proclamation would therefore be seriously misleading for a large share of the working-age population, which is why this is marked research and the conscription regime is stated alongside the statute.