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National law and policies on minimum ages – Chile

 

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:
3rd periodic report: CRC/C/CHL/3, 20 December 2005
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add. 13, 25 June 2001
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 3rd report
168. […] On 7 May 2003 a new constitutional reform came into force establishing compulsory and free secondary education, with the State responsible for guaranteeing access to that level of education for all Chileans up to the age of 21. In this way, the Government is seeking to ensure that children and adolescents receive a minimum of 12 years’ schooling.
From 2nd report
202. Since the adoption of the Primary Education Act in 1928 primary education has been compulsory for a period of eight years.
905. Article 10 of the Constitution stipulates that primary education is compulsory. It makes the State responsible for ‘‘...financing a system to achieve that objective, which shall be free of charge and shall allow access to the whole population...’’, which is equivalent to stating the principle that primary education is compulsory, available free to all and provided by the State.
906. Children are admitted at the different levels and for the different streams at the following ages:
(a) preschool education, second transition: 5 years; (b) general primary education, first year: 6 years; (c) secondary education -- humanistic/scientific and technical/vocational, maximum age: 18 years. 
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 3rd report
260. In conformity with the standards set forth in ILO Convention No. 138, in June 2000 the Senate adopted Act No. 19.684 amending the Labour Code and raising the minimum age for admission to employment from 14 to 15 years of age.
From 2nd report
1089. Chilean legislation governing the minimum age for admission to employment lays down the following rules (art. 13):
(a) A person aged 18 or over has full capacity to accept employment and may freely enter into contracts of service; (b) Persons over age 15 but under age 18 may only work with the express permission of his father or mother, grandparents, guardians or the labour inspector, in the order given, each acting in the absence of those preceding them;(c) When the authorisation is given by a labour inspector, the latter must bring the circumstances to the attention of a juvenile judge, who has the power to quash the authorisation if he considers that it will have undesirable consequences for the minor; (d) Minors between ages 14 and 15 may only work if they comply with the system of authorisation referred to in the previous section and then only subject to the following additional requirements: that they have completed their minimum compulsory schooling; and that the work is light, is not prejudicial to their health or development and does not interfere with their attendance at school or participation in educational programmes; (e) Minors under age 14 are prohibited from working. 
 
Minimum age for marriage
From 3rd report
35. […] Under the new Civil Marriage Act of 2004 the minimum age for
contracting marriage is set at 16 years for males and females without distinction.
From 2nd report
206. In order to marry, persons aged under 18 but over 14 in the case of boys or over 12 in the case of girls require the express consent of their father or, in his absence, of their mother or of a legitimate ascendant of a close degree of affinity or, failing that, of a guardian or Civil Registry official (arts. 106 and 107 of the Civil Code).
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 3rd report
240. The Act establishing a system of responsibility of adolescents for breaches of criminal law, described above [Act No. 19.806 introducing provisions in response to the reform of the criminal procedure, which amends, among other legal instruments, the Juvenile Act (No. 16.618)] and about to be promulgated, establishes 14 as the age of criminal responsibility. Children under that age shall be considered not to be criminally responsible.
From 2nd report
212. The following persons are exempt from criminal responsibility:
(a) Children aged under 16 years; (b) Children aged over 16 but under 18 who are not deemed to possess “discernment”.
1032. Briefly, it may be said that the formula used for purposes of declaration of non-imputability is a combination of biological and psychological criteria based on three presumptions, viz.: (a) beginning at age 18: automatic presumption of full imputability; (b) under age 16: automatic presumption of absolute non-imputability; (c) between ages 16 and 18: simple legal presumption of non-imputability, which may be invalidated if it is established by a special procedure conducted by a juvenile judge that the minor acted with discernment.
 
Sources:
3rd periodic report: CRC/C/CHL/3, 20 December 2005
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add. 13, 25 June 2001