What do you think about the New Amendments to the Kazakhstan Labour code?

Labour Code or Labour Law is the law regulating and improving employees’ rights, health and lives at working places. The origin of Labour code goes back to the XVIII century which started with protection of children at work. The first regulations were about working hours, protection of children’s health. And according the first so-called Labour Code working hours of children under 16 and women of any age were limited, night work was abolished for children and employment of children under 12 was prohibited.

Later both the countries and their regulations developed and improved and led to establishing of Labour Law or Labour Code applied to the matters of employment, condition of work, trade unions, industrial relations, social security, disability insurance and so on.

From time to time countries make amendments and changes to their Labour Code. Today we would like to speak about changes in the Labour Code of Kazakhstan.

The Senate of the Kazakhstan Republic adopted amendments to the Labour Code of the country. The amendments include exclusion of norms restricting of women’s labour, as well as preventing women from doing hard work and working in harmful and/or dangerous conditions to give equal opportunities for men and women in the labour market.

The changes and amendments have been made to the legislation acts of the Kazakhstan Republic:

• The statement “the list of jobs where using of women’s labour is restricted” of Subparagraph 27, Article 16 of the Kazakhstan Labour Code dated November 23, 2015 is deleted.

• The Subparagraph 4, Paragraph 2 of Article 26 is excluded:

“Labour of females is not allowed on hard work, as well as work with harmful and/or hazardous working conditions in accordance with the List”

• In Subparagraph 2, Paragraph 4 of Article 76 the word “sixteen” was replaced with the word “eighteen”.

Thus, the main changes are that women in Kazakhstan are allowed to work on hard work.

The employer does not have the right to engage the following employees to work at night without their written consent:

• Employees growing disabled children under sixteen eighteen.

The changes to the Labour Code are awaiting the signature of the President of the Kazakhstan Republic and will come in force upon expiry of 10 calendar days of its first official publication.

These changes have been made to give more opportunity for women in finding a job and promoting gender equality in Kazakhstan. Workplace gender equality is achieved when people have the right to access and enjoy equal rewards, resources and opportunities regardless of gender.

Some men and women think that doing hard work, lifting and carrying heavy things are not for women and consider these changes made to the Labour Law to be wrong. But women carry their babies for 9 months in their bodies and lift them for years. So, they can manage with it. They do all kind of work about the house. Historically, main employees of farms and fields were women and they are at present. If you enjoy doing something or your job and do it with great pleasure you will not feel heaviness, as carrying heavy things in your hands or shoulders are much easier to carry them in your heart.

Women are considered weak physically, but it is wrong, because there are a lot of women-weightlifting sportsmen in the world and they are not physically weaker than men. So, there are weak and strong people despite of their gender.

Sources: (Wikipedia; www.bls.gov; www.britannica.com)