TNAG-1854-FCO40-2629-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-memoranda-and-minutes-of-me-1989 — Page 255

16-JAN-1989 16:47

EDUCATION & MANPOWER BR

852 5 868 5916

P.03

DRAFT

Question No. 1

Reply by the Honourable R G B Bridge, OBE, JP Secretary for Education and Manpower

to a question by the Honourable TAM Yiu-chung in the Legislative Council on 18 January 1989

Question: Article 7(a)(i) of the International

Answer :

Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides that men and women shall be entitled to equal pay for equal work. The United Kingdom Government, on ratifying this Covenant in 1976, reserved the right to postpone application of Article 7(a)(i) in So far as it concerns the private sector in Hong Kong. Will the Government inform this Council why the application of Article 7(a)(i) has been postponed in relation to Hong Kong since 1976 and what steps will now be taken to improve this situation or inequality ?

sir,

I

it accepted the principle of

understand that when the Hong Kong Government

considered this issue in 1976 it

equal pay for equal work, but felt that to apply Article 2 of

the Economic Covenant without

reservation would cause

practical problems.

At that time the

Government

felt that any

between men and women were

differences in conditions of work between

mainly due to the differences in the positions they held,

rather than to discrimination. However, in order to be sure

of full compliance in the private sector the Government would

have had to legislate. The Government was not convinced that

this was necessary and therefore asked the UK Government to

make the appropriate reservation.

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