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National law and policies on minimum ages – Iraq

 

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.

Source: Initial report: CRC/C/41/Add.3, 9 December 1996

 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
101. The principal national legal texts in force in regard to education are as follows: […] (b) Article 1 of the Compulsory Education Act No. 118 of 1976 stipulates that: “Education at the primary level shall be free and compulsory for all children who have reached the age of six years at the beginning of the academic year”.
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
120. Articles 90 to 97 of the Labour Act No. 71 of 1987 regulate the employment of young persons, as can be seen from the following:
(a) Article 90 prohibits the employment of juveniles under 18 years of age in types of work that cause contagious occupational diseases or exposure to hazardous toxic substances, as well as work which, due to its nature or the manner and circumstances in which it is performed, poses a threat to the lives, morality or health of the persons engaged therein, and work that is performed on board ship by stokers and assistant stokers;
(b) Article 91 sets the minimum age for the employment of children at 15 years for daytime work that is neither strenuous nor harmful. It permits the employment of juveniles over 17 years of age in types of day, night and overtime work other than those specified in article 90 above.
 
Minimum age for marriage
Information unavailable
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
134. Under article 66 of the above-mentioned Code, a person who, at the time of his commission of an offence, was over 17 but under 18 years of age is designated as a “juvenile”. If he was under 15 years of age he is designated as a “preadolescent” and, if he was over 15 but under 18 years of age, he is designated as an “adolescent”. In this way, articles 67 to 78 of the Code prescribe penalties for juveniles, preadolescents and adolescents, in the event of their commission of a contravention or an offence, in a manner appropriate to their age and the stage of their mental development.
 
Source: Initial report: CRC/C/41/Add.3, 9 December 1996