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to government-owned and private sugar estates, including one owned by a United States- based multinational company. The report stated that the cane-cutters lived and worked in conditions of great deprivation, were paid minimal wages and were cheated out of their due and forced to incur debts to the sugar estates in order to survive. The cane-cutter camps lacked hygienic facilities, were grossly overcrowded and children were often under-nourished. According to the report, union rights were violated and workers' attempts to organize had been repressed. The report urged the Working Group, through the Sub-Commission, to bring the allegations to the attention of the Governments of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the United States for comment and remedial action, and to the attention of the relevant specialized agencies and the Organization of American States.

23.

The ILO representative informed the Group that the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations at its next session, in March 1980, would conduct a general survey under art. 19 of the ILO Constitution of the situation of all ILO member States in relation to ILO conventions on migration for employment.

24. Concerning the reply submitted by Guatemala to the Working Group,5/ he indicated that Guatemala had not ratified the Forced Labour Convention (No.29) and the Tribal and Indigenous Populations Convention (No. 107). The Government's statement that it did not have any tribal or semi-tribal. peoples in the sense of the latter Convention and that the Convention therefore did not apply to Guatemala, was not in. accord with the information available to the ILO. The ILO representative also. informed the Group that the Government of Guatemala had not yet replied to the Committee of Experts' request for information under the Protection of Wages Convention, 1949, (No. 95) and that the request would be renewed in 1979.

25. One member called the Group's attention to the report on the situation in Equatorial Guinea submitted by the International Movement for Fraternal Union Among Races and Peoples.6/ The report alleged the existence of slavery-like practices in that country, such as forced labour, forced marriage and prostitution, the sale of children, and the trade in workers. The report expressed the hope that the information submitted would be made available to the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights and to the ILO. Some participants in the meeting stated that they would be pleased if these conditions were found to have been rectified after the fall of the Government, and were looking forward to receiving information in this respect, but that in any event the lessons of these violations should be studied in order to try to prevent recurrence.

C. The exploitation of child labour

26.

The Working Group had before it the following three monographs on child labour submitted by the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights:

(a) Child labour in Hong Kong. The study stated that there was "considerable incidence" of child labour in the Colony. While the exact figures were hard to determine, the 1971 census figures had put the total at over 36,000 children aged 10-14. This labour occurred in violation of existing legislation, mostly in small factories where children worked long hours in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, and for little pay. The report stated that labour inspection appeared to be ineffective; sentences imposed on employers insufficient to act as a deterrent; and the provision of secondary education to the legal limits for work insufficient and unenforced.

5/

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6/ E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.2/27, Annex II..