HARARE - An International Labour Organisation (ILO) team has arrived in Zimbabwe to investigate workers rights violations including the alleged torture of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) leaders in 2006.Speaking during an interview ZCTU President, Lovemore Matombo, said the ILO team of three lawyers arrived in the country to carry out theinvestigations.
“The three distinguished lawyers appointed by the ILO on the basis of impartiality and knowledge of industrial relations and human rights are now in the country to investigate whether the there was any human rights violations when people where beaten on expressing themselves in 2006,” said Matombo.
The lawyers, who are from South Africa and Mauritius respectively, will mainly conduct interviews with victims of the 2006 police assaults.ZCTU leaders, labour and workers rights activists were brutally assaulted in 2006 after staging protests aimed at forcing the government to improve working conditions.
Lawyers representing the union leaders alleged at the time that their clients were tortured while in police detention at notorious Matapi Police Station in Mbare.
The trio is expected to meet with the police, several government ministers, security agencies and union leaders.
“They are going to meet several people but I can not go into the details of their work because it will be pre-judicial to do so,” said Matombo.
Some of the ZCTU leaders were left with broken limbs and now nurse permanent disabilities.
An ILO delegation visited the country early this year to access the situation of workers rights in this country and urged the country to adhere to the international statutes on workers rights.
A report on Zimbabwe is to be presented at an ILO meeting in Geneva, Switzerland later this year.
The report will encompass the findings of the three man ILO investigating team.
Post published in: Politics