Compliance with international standards on compensation for occupational injuries and diseases by Zimbabwe and South Africa

Abstract

This mini thesis provides a comparative study on two Member States of the ILO. These are, namely: South Africa and Zimbabwe. The purpose of this research is to find out whether Zimbabwe and South Africa are complying with the standards set by the ILO regarding the issue of compensation for occupational injuries and diseases. The terms workers compensation and employment injury benefits are frequently used interchangeably.¹³ Workers compensation is the older term, generally used originally to refer to schemes which provide benefits in the case of death and incapacity due to accidents at work and, later, due to prescribed occupational diseases as well. These benefits could be temporary or permanent, total or partial. In these ILO instruments, the term employment injury is used to cover both accidents at work and occupational diseases.¹⁴ This mini-thesis determines whether South Africa and Zimbabwe are complying with or failing to meet the standards set by the ILO. The research further provides recommendations regarding the shortfalls that South Africa and Zimbabwe are facing so that they will get in line with the standards of ILO, because this is essential to the lives of millions of workers working in these two countries.