Retaliation against Sudanese Workers

The Sudanese Transitional Government, after arbitrarily declaring, disregarding international labor conventions, dissolved the Sudanese Workers’ Trade Union Federation (SWTUF) and confiscated its assets and property, not renting this time around has gone further to retrench civil servants and Workers.

Taking advantage of the current global health crisis, the transitional authorities in Khartoum are carrying out the systematic purging of civil servants and workers in public institutions and economic enterprises. A real, carefully planned retribution is happening in Sudan.

As of June 10, 2020, the transitional government of Sudan led by its Prime Minister, Mr. Abdallah Hamdouk, unfairly dismisses more than 651 civil servants. According to our sources in Sudan, hundreds of workers have suffered the same fate in other companies. It is a real social tragedy and political settling of accounts and nothing else.

This act, which is a violation of fundamental rights at work and human rights, reveals the nature of the new regime in Sudan and the totalitarian hints of its leaders.

National, regional and international trade union organizations unanimously and firmly condemn these grave acts and the repeated and systematic violations of trade union and labour rights in Sudan.

A complaint was lodged at the level of the International Labour Standards Department at the ILO to request its intervention on the file of the arbitrary dissolution of the Sudanese Workers Trade Union Federation (SWTUF) and the end of the persecution of union leaders.

However, according to certain sources, an official at the level of the International Labour Standards Department at the ILO, a Sudanese national, served as a relay of information and guidance for the Sudanese transitional government on the issue of the violation of trade union freedoms in Sudan.

If this information is confirmed, it would be a serious blow to the credibility and reputation of this United Nations Agency whose officials are known for their professionalism, their exemplarity and their attachment to the principles and values of the oldest international organization in the world.

Accra, 22nd June 2020

OATUU Communication Department