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National law and policies on minimum ages – Costa Rica

 

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/125/Add.4, 13 October 2004
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.7, 1 October 1998
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 2nd report
61. As far as education is concerned, in the Republic of Costa Rica, under article 78 of the Political Constitution, "public education is compulsory and, like pre-school and specialized education, is free and paid for by the nation".
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 2nd report
168. In addition, as part of the process of adaptation of the legal system to comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and International Labour Organization Convention No. 138, the Executive vetoed the legislation establishing a minimum age of 12 years for authorization of the employment of children on the grounds that that legislation was not in line with commitments entered into at international level. The Children's and Adolescents' Code contains an entire chapter on the special regime of protection for juvenile workers and sets the minimum age for admission to employment at 15 years.
 
Minimum age for marriage
Information unavailable
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 3rd report
587. Juvenile criminal law is applicable only to persons who are older than 12 but have not yet turned 18. Children under the age of 12 cannot be held liable. However, offenders under the age of 12 are dealt with by administrative authorities, and in such cases it is PANI that decides what measures are called for, except that the offender can be deprived of liberty only by order of a juvenile court judge. The Act distinguishes between two age groups: juveniles who are over 12 but have not yet turned 15, and those who are over 15 but have not yet turned 18. The effect of this legal distinction is that lighter penalties are imposed for minor offences, depending on the offender’s age group.
 
Sources:
3rd periodic report: CRC/C/125/Add.4, 13 October 2004
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.7, 1 October 1998