Eswatini - Continued repression of trade union activity (2011)

In an interview given to a London student’s newspaper in February 2010, B.V. Dlamini, deputy secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) described the trade union rights situation in the country as follows: “When workers go on strike, the government sends the police to beat the hell out of them. There are even cases where police agents were shooting the workers just because they went on strike, demanding better working conditions”. The government said that it was “not going to tolerate [strikes], because it will chase [away] investors”. Mr. Dlamini also explained that while Swaziland was often one of the first countries to ratify international conventions, including ILO Conventions, it was usually also the first to violate them.