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National law and policies on minimum ages – Honduras

 

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/HND/3, 27 July 2006
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.2, 20 February 1998
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 2nd report
323. According to article 171 of the Constitution: "Education given officially shall be free of charge and basic education shall also be compulsory and fully funded by the State. The State shall establish the mechanisms of compulsion to give effect to this provision." Compulsory schooling shall continue up to the sixth grade of primary education, including pre-school education. As a rule it covers ages 7 to 13 years.
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 2nd report
324. Our labour laws establish that a child of 16 years may enter into labour contracts under the supervision of the Ministry of Labour. Exceptionally, for reasons of material necessity for himself or his family a child may work from the age of fourteen years as a minimum. The newly adopted legislation establishes the minimum age of fourteen years in accordance with Convention 138 of the International Labour Organization (articles 115, 120 of the Code on Children/article 128 (7) of the Constitution).
 
Minimum age for marriage
From 2nd report
326. With regard to marriage, the age at which a person is fully authorized to contract marriage without the consent of his or her parents is 21 years (age of majority). However, persons may marry with the consent of their parents or legal representatives at the age of 18 or at 16 if the couple have already been living together.
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 3rd report
119. […] adolescents are considered liable to prosecution from 12 years.
From 2nd report
329. With regard to criminal responsibility, the new Code on Children establishes clearly that children under the age of 12 years may not be charged, are not criminal and may not be subjected to a children's system of justice. From 12 to 18 years the special system of justice for children who break the law will be applied, with all its guarantees of due process. (Article 122 of the Constitution and articles 180 et seq. of the Code on Children and Adolescents).
 
Sources:
3rd periodic report: CRC/C/HND/3, 27 July 2006
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.2, 20 February 1998