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National law and policies on minimum ages – Bolivia

 

According to the CRC, laws and policies must be directed to the best interest of the child. This is especially so in provisions that aim to safeguard the child against exploitation or an early end to childhood, i.e. in the instances where children are most vulnerable and at risk. Yet such safeguards are often ignored and different areas of legislation found to clash with each other. What happens if the age for the end of compulsory education is 14 but the minimum age of employment is 12? Or vice versa? What if a girl can be married before school leaving age - will she then return to school? And who ensures schooling in prisons, when in reality education should protect children from incarceration?

 

 

 

 

With 192 parties to it, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified UN treaty. Each State Party must submit periodic reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which uses this process to monitor State compliance with the treaty. The vast majority of the information on minimum ages presented on these pages is taken directly from such reports (occasionally, if these failed to include relevant information concerning minimum ages, other components of the reporting process - such as the Committee’s Concluding Observations - were consulted). States Parties’ reports constitute self-assessment by governments and are therefore authoritative sources, emanating directly from those empowered to make decisions. Using this type of sources also permits a range of actors to hold governments accountable for the standards which they report under the CRC. The sections of these reports have been reproduced faithfully, and readers are encouraged to make use of the full original text, available here.

 

Individual country reports are often written by diverse parts of the government, and frequently run to more than 100 pages. Moreover, within some states’ legal systems there are various recognised sources of law, which frequently generate conflicting minimum ages. Distilling precise numbers out of such documents is therefore a precarious task. While we would encourage cross-country comparison, we would also stress the danger that those countries with a more honest engagement with the reporting process might come off worse when compared with those which would mis-represent the degree of compliance, whether wilfully or not. For a full explanation of the principles that guided us in our analysis, please visit the introductory pages here.

 

Sources:
4th periodic report: CRC/C/BOL/4, 25 March 2009
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.1, 1 December 1997
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 4th report
195. a) The State has the obligation to ensure primary schooling for children and adolescents from age 5 (or earlier) through age 16; it must also provide those who do not timely enter the school system with the possibility of entering Adult Education as from age 15, with schedules that are compatible with work […]
From 2nd report
Information unavailable 
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 4th report
195. f) According to the Code, the minimum age to work is 14 […]
140. The General Labour Act prohibits children under 14 from working, except as apprentices   / General Labour Act of 8 December 1942. 
 
Minimum age for marriage
From 4th report
195. b) The minimum age for marriage, according to the Family Code is 14 years for women and 16 for men (article 44) […]
From 2nd report
142. The ages indicated in the previous report have not been changed: 16 for males and 14 for females, though a judge may grant exemption from the age requirement if there are serious and justified grounds for doing so / Law 996 of 4 April 1988.
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 4th report
195. i) Adolescents from age 12 up to their 16th birthday who break the law are subject to social responsibility, and adolescents over age 16 who are responsible for conduct characterized as criminal are subject to criminal liability. Children who have not reached the age of 12 are exempt from social responsibility and may not in any event be deprived of liberty […]
From 2nd report
155. The Penal Code fixes the age of criminal responsibility at 16. Since July of last year, juveniles who have not reached the age of 16 -- without any restriction as to minimum age -- and have committed an offence defined by the criminal law as a misdemeanour (‘‘delito’’) appear before the juvenile judge / Law No. 1702 of 26 July 1996. who must duly apply the socio-educational measure he considers necessary. It should be noted that as a result of the legal changes which have affected the Code, the juvenile judges do not have a pre-established procedure for judging offences, so that they apply the ordinary rules of court. 
 
Sources:
4th periodic report: CRC/C/BOL/4, 25 March 2009
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.1, 1 December 1997