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National law and policies on minimum ages – Estonia

 

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/8/Add.45, 11 July 2002
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
33. Children who have attained 7 years of age by 1 October of the current year are subject to the obligation to attend school. Upon the wish of the parents a child who has attained 6 years of age by 30 April of the current year may be admitted to the first year at school. A student is obliged to attend school until completing basic education (9 years at basic school) or until attaining 17 years of age (Basic and Upper Secondary Schools Act, article 17).
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
34. According to the Labour Contracts Act (RT I 1992, 15, 241), a person who has attained 18 years of age may be employed. In exceptional cases, with the written consent of a parent or guardian, a minor having attained 15 years of age may be employed if the work does not endanger the minor’s health, morals and acquiring of education and if the work is not prohibited for minors. A minor between 13 and 15 years of age may be employed with the written consent of a parent or guardian and the labour inspector of the employer’s location and for work included in the list approved by the Government of the Republic if the work does not endanger the minor’s health, morals and acquiring of education and if the work is not prohibited for minors.
 
Minimum age for marriage
36. A person is of age to marry when he or she has attained 18 years of age. Minors between 15 and 18 may marry with the written consent of their parents or a guardian. If one of the parents or the guardian does not consent to the marriage, a court may grant the right to marry based on the application of one of the parents or of the guardianship authority. The court grants the right to marry if the marriage is in the interests of the minor (Family Act, art. 3).
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
440. Article 10 of the Criminal Code establishes that a person who has attained 15 years of age prior to committing an offence is subject to criminal liability. As an exception, a person who committed an offence between the ages of 13 and 15 is subject to criminal liability in certain cases set out in articles of the Criminal Code, for instance: articles 100 (murder), 101 (aggravated murder), 107 (intentional causing of extremely severe bodily injury), 108 (intentional causing of serious bodily injury), 113-115 (acts of violence against persons, torture, rape), 139 (secret theft), 140-142 (public theft, robbery, extortion).
 
Source: Initial report: CRC/C/8/Add.45, 11 July 2002