Denise Arcoverde Breastfeeding, Women and Work Website The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), would like to invite you to visit its new website at http://www.waba.org.br/working.htm and click the button for "ILO Campaign." WABA, the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) and other organizations have formed a coalition to work on strengthening the breastfeeding rights of working women. The most important normative documents that influence national laws in support of this right are the International Labor Organization Convention 103 and Recommendation 95. ILO is currently revising these and we would like to alert you about this. You can obtain detailed information on what has happened so far at the first ILO Conference to deal with these revisions in Geneva in June 1999. Unfortunately, ministries of health, who these days usually recommend exclusive breastfeeding for 4, 5, or 6 months, are not being consulted with in this ILO process. One important contribution in many countries would be to suggest to ministries of health that they contact the ministry of labor and call for a formal consultation to harmonize national policy on this issue. The coalition hopes to work also at regional and national levels in the coming years to encourage this kind of harmonization at least at the level of national legislation. Let us know also if this is something you would like to work practically with in your country. Your country will comment on the latest version to the ILO by November. The next ILO Convention in June 2000 will vote on the new convention and recommendation. If you would like to know what you can do in your country to influence your delegates (government, labor and/or employers), please read the information in the website first, and then write to [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] We look forward to your support! Ted Greiner, PhD Coordinator, WABA Research Task Force Denise Arcoverde WABA WBW Coordinator Webmasters of the WABA "Breastfeeding, Women and Work" Website ___________ Kathleen B. Bruce, BSN, IBCLC co-owner Lactnet,TLC, Indep. Consultant Williston, Vermont mailto:[log in to unmask] LACTNET Archives http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/lactnet.html *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html