Skip to Content
Home

National law and policies on minimum ages – Djibouti

 

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:

2nd periodic report: CRC/C/DJI/2. 11 December 2007
Initial report: CRC/C/8/Add. 39, 3 August 1998
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 2nd report
240. The [Djiboutian Education System (August 2000)] Act recognizes the right to education for all Djiboutian children without discrimination, carefully defines the objectives of education and seeks to ensure: Compulsory fundamental education for nine years for children between 6 and 16 years of age […]
From initial report
Information unavailable
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 2nd report
76. […] the Labour Code (art. 5) sets the age for admission to work at 16 years. The legislator has, nevertheless, been vigilant, and has enacted specific provisions enabling young persons aged 16-18 to work in humane conditions, in compliance with the Convention.
From initial report
24. The law in force regulates the paid employment of teenagers. In public sector jobs, the minimum age is 18 years. However, in sectors which are subject to labour regulations (trade, industry, agriculture) a special regime applies to children aged between 13 and 18.
25. Night work remains prohibited until the age of 16 and special dispensations in ordinary law are intended to protect young employees as regards working hours, holiday entitlement and occupational health, as well as hygiene and safety conditions. The Government's plan to reform the Labour Code should raise the minimum working age to 14 years and gradually extend this legal protection to unsalaried work.
 
Minimum age for marriage
From 2nd report
83. […] Effective protection against early marriage of girls has been provided in the Family Code, which fixes the age for marriage at 18 years, for both men and women (art. 13). Marriage of minors remains strictly controlled and is the exception. It may take place only if a judge has been consulted, the parents or guardians have given their consent and there is a persistent wish on the part of the spouses (art. 14).
From initial report
Information unavailable
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 2nd report
79. […] children under the age of 13 […] are considered to be incapable of discernment and, in consequence, cannot be held criminally responsible.
80. […] children aged 13-18 […] are partially responsible for their acts; the penalties they incur are always reduced by half. Other protection measures are also envisaged for juvenile offenders, who must be granted more lenient conditions of detention.
From initial report
22. A minor under 13 years of age cannot be held criminally responsible because he is incapable of discernment. An offence is not punishable if the accused was under 13 at the time of its commission. A minor aged between 13 and 18 is regarded as partially exempt from responsibility because he is not fully capable of discernment. In the case of both serious and ordinary offences, the fact of being a minor is a mitigating circumstance, and protection or rehabilitation measures may be ordered under article 498 of the Code of Penal Procedure. Offenders who have reached the age of criminal responsibility -- 18 years -- are deemed to be fully responsible.
23. The basis for determining whether or not an offender has reached the age of criminal responsibility is his age on the day of the offence.
 
Sources:
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/DJI/2. 11 December 2007
Initial report: CRC/C/8/Add. 39, 3 August 1998