Skip to Content
Home

National law and policies on minimum ages – Gabon

 

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.10, 13 July 2001

 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
82. In accordance with article 28 of the Convention, Gabonese legislation, in Act No. 16/66 of 9 August 1966 on the general organization of education, defines the fundamental principles underlying the functioning of the educational system, including free schooling, compulsory education between the ages of 6 and 16, and equal opportunities for boys and girls.
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
250. Article 177 of the Gabonese Labour Code (Act. No. 3/94 of 21 November 1994) stipulates that children cannot be employed in any enterprise before the age of 16 years, unless dispensation has been granted by decree at the joint initiative of the Ministers of Labour, Public Health and National Education, with due account taken of the circumstances and of the tasks which they may be asked to perform.
 
Minimum age for marriage
71. The traditional concept of marriage differs from that of marriage under civil law. According to the traditional concept, the protection of the child within marriage meant that marriage was not a matter for the couple as such; rather, parents or family chose their children’s spouses, whatever the children’s ages. Children aged 10 could therefore be married. The girl was entrusted to the boy’s family and grew up with him.
72. Under civil law, men cannot get married until they are over 18 years old, and women must be over 15 (Civil Code, art. 203). However, the President of the Republic may grant dispensation from the age requirement if there are good grounds for doing so. The insane may marry only during a period of lucidity, with the authorization of their guardian and after a favourable recommendation from a psychiatrist or, failing that, a doctor (art. 204).
74. Even when they meet the age requirements, young men or women who have not reached the age of 21 cannot get married without the consent of their father and mother or guardian (Civil Code, art. 205).
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
76. A child under the age of 13 is not criminally liable, however serious the acts committed (Penal Code, art. 56, Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 145, prohibiting imprisonment of a child under 13).
 
Source: Initial report: CRC/C/41/Add.10, 13 July 2001