The Situation of Workers of the Occupied Arab Territories: International Labour Conference, 95th Session 2006

The Report was prepared, as in previous years, following high-level missions to Israel and the occupied Arab territories and to the Syrian Arab Republic. The missions enjoyed once more the full cooperation of the interlocutors, reaffirming the support for the ILO's efforts to contribute to building peace and security in the region through monitoring and assessing economic and social development in our fields of competence. As always, the ILO followed the overall guidance of the United Nations in its activities in the occupied Arab territories. The cooperation received was particularly welcome this year, as the missions were timed so as to visit the region after democratic elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council on 25 January and to the Israel Knesset on 28 March 2006. The missions thus witnessed at first hand a situation in which a new Government of the Palestinian Authority had just assumed office and a new Israel Government was still being formed. There was an expectation among the parties involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts that these changes would lead to some redefinitions of the respective positions. Similarly, important actors in the international community reminded both sides of their international obligations and reaffirmed their commitment to the search for ways of averting a deepening of the humanitarian crisis and renewing the peace process. What the missions saw was that the daily life of workers in the occupied Arab territories not only continues to be dramatic but is further complicated by additional political uncertainties. As the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Pease Process, Alvaro de Soto, has highlighted, the major current challenges include finding ways for the United Nations and other international actors to ensure that the interests of peace are served and the needs of the Palestinian people met. This cannot only be through the activities of international agencies, since the services provided by the Palestinian Authority cannot be replaced. The mission's examination of the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories served to highlight the continuing plight of very large numbers of women and men who are unable to work regularly, productively and in acceptable conditions. Its report is written in factual language but describes a situation that amounts to a daily affront to human dignity and an immense accumulation of frustration directed against the multiple and recurrent obstacles that thwart people in their perfectly normal aspiration to earn a decent living.