Employment Rights of Women and the Disabled: Curbing Workplace Discrimination

Abstract

Many persons, mostly women and the disabled are denied employment or given lowly and poorly remunerated jobs, despite the fact that majority of women can perform a large range of tasks in accordance with the prevailing work norms. Worst still, in event of economic distress, women are usually the first to be discharged and the last to be hired. Therefore, the necessity to ensure that women and the disabled persons have equal opportunities for productive and gainful employment in the open labour market, and be free from any form of work place discrimination is the basis for this paper. The research methodology was doctrinal approach, using expository and analytical research design. The main sources of data collection were various legal literature from physical and e-libraries. It was observed among others that the Nigerian Labour Act does not specifically check the act of work place discrimination against women and the disabled due to the weakness of the prevailing section 54 to 58 of the Act to meet the current reality. It was recommended that the Nigerian legislature should specifically enact law to check the act of work place discrimination against women and the disabled and enforce employment right of women, irrespective of their disabilities, and that the prevailing section 54 to 58 of the Labour Act which provide for women should be repealed for the penalty to meet the current reality. Also, the civil society organizations should accordingly intensify their services in effective sensitization. The significance makes it a pragmatic and deliberate concern of all stakeholders in women’s right movement and every meaningful individual to promote justice and equity of women’s right in employment and to protect them against workplace discrimination.