Minimum age of employment
All information on this page is taken from At What Age?...are school-children employed, married and taken to court? This major study was written by Angela Melchiorre uniquely on the basis of States Parties’ Reports submitted to the Committee on the Rights of the Child from January 1997 to January 2004. Because of this specific choice of sources and the backlog in the reporting procedure, information concerning some countries may not reflect the most recent developments. The study, nonetheless, derives from authoritative information, as explained in the methodology. It is currently being updated to include information submitted in the years 2004 to 2010.
We encourage all to visit the publication in its entirety (just click on the book title). This will also enable you to compare different countries, a major part of the understanding of why this information is important. For the general comparative table, see here.
The guiding principle for the minimum age of employment in the CRC is article 32. Its paragraph 2(a) does not require the establishment of a single minimum age for admission to employment which is uniformly applicable without exception to all minors and to all kinds of employment. It simply requires States to "provide for a minimum age or minimum ages for admission to employment".
While the Convention itself does not prescribe a precise age, the Committee has consistently indicated and recommended that minimum ages should be set in the light of the provisions of other international instruments and in particular of ILO Minimum Age Convention N. 138. The analysis of States Parties' reports discloses that almost all governments do base their reporting on the ILO standards. Therefore the guiding principles and rules of interpretation of At what age? follow the same pattern.
The thrust of the ILO principles is that the general minimum age for admission to any employment should be no less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and, in any case, no less than 15; where the economy and educational facilities of a country are insufficiently developed, it may be initially reduced by one year to 14. There are various exceptions to this general rule.
The main ones concern:
(a) Light work, which is permissible on a set of conditions and for which the minimum age may be set at 12 or 13 years;
(b) Hazardous work for which a higher minimum age is required (18).
Furthermore, it is to be noted that activities such as domestic service, work in family undertakings and work undertaken as part of education are excluded from minimum age legislation.
A significant number of countries have established legislation that prohibits the employment of children below a certain age. In those cases where children are legally permitted to work, States often specify the conditions under which this can happen in line with ILO standards: that the work should not be harmful to the child's health or development, should not interfere with school instruction, should not take place during school hours and should not be for more than specifically prescribed hours of work. These achievements notwithstanding, there remains a great deal of ambiguity in many of the States' reports and inconsistency with compulsory education standards.
Many countries have not established a single minimum age for admission to any employment or work. Indications refer either to a basic minimum age limited to specified sectors or occupations, or to different minimum ages according to the various economic activities. Other countries also specify a minimum age for light work and may or may not subject it to the conditions set forth in Convention N.138. In some other cases the exceptions are clearly broader than those falling under ILO standards and therefore are recorded as not according protection as far as a minimum age is concerned.
Difficulties relating to the definition of light work or referring to the conditions under which such work is permitted, as well as varying long lists of categories for limited application or particular exceptions, constitute a major concern for a coherent interpretation of State reports. Moreover, attention should focus on the role of part-time or full-time employment that could affect the educational process and development of the child.
Therefore, in order to aim at the maximum consistency possible, the complexity of rules and exceptions regarding children's employment in individual countries has been excluded, and only the generally determined minimum age is cited in this research. Future analysis should focus on the exceptions to this general minimum age, in order to expose where these may in fact signify a barrier to the realisation of the right to education.
The link between the minimum age for completion of compulsory education and the minimum age of employment
The goals of universal education and elimination of child labour are inextricably linked. Free and compulsory education of good quality secured until the minimum age for entry to employment is a critical factor in the struggle against economic exploitation of children, while child labour is a fundamental obstacle to the development and implementation of compulsory education strategies. Minimum age labour laws and compulsory education laws are therefore interdependent: the enforcement of one contributes to the enforcement of the other. In this sense, it is crucial to establish a link between school and labour authorities, legislation and practice.
In law, the connection is clear: article 32 of the CRC requires States to protect the child from performing any work that is likely to interfere with his or her education. ILO standards are even more explicit and state that the minimum age for employment should not be lower than the age for completion of compulsory education. In addition, the Guidelines for Periodic Reports reinforce the link by requesting States to indicate "how the minimum age for employment relates to the age of completion of compulsory schooling…" However, discrepancies between these ages are still prevalent and cause of great concern. The need to align these standards remains urgent and goes hand in hand with the need to focus more attention on secondary education, as the school leaving age tends to be too low in many countries.
Methodology
This publication summarises results of a great deal of research, based on an analysis of States Parties' reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. It was first published in 2002 and included State reports presented from January 1997 to August 2002. The current text is a revision/update of the previous findings with the addition of State reports from August 2002 to January 2004. Whilst it would be possible to supplement, or contrast this source with non-governmental or academic material, this has not been done here. States Parties' reports constitute self-assessment by governments and presenting them here, in an easily comparable format, allows inter-national comparison and permits a range of actors to hold governments accountable for the standards which they report under the CRC.
The first part of the publication displays a summary table listing all reporting States. Four different entries are given: minimum school-leaving age, minimum age of employment, minimum age for marriage and minimum age for criminal responsibility. The year of report and the page number are also noted for ease of consultation. The second part contains excerpts from the relevant States Parties' reports presented in alphabetical order, with direct reference to document and paragraph numbers. The source can be the initial report to the Committee, the periodic report or both where the latter is silent on minimum ages or presents unclear or incomplete information. The sections of these reports herein have been reproduced faithfully, and where information has been omitted as it was judged irrelevant this is clearly indicated in the following manner: […]. For a fully authoritative record, readers are encouraged to make use of the original text following document symbols and paragraph references given for each report.
Comparing different ages in different countries or even within the same country is a difficult task, and inferring a precise number from a general description is a dangerous exercise. Collecting, collating, analysing and interpreting State reports requires a great deal of care, thought and patience. Individual country reports are often more than a hundred pages long, and written by different parts of the government. Moreover, a variety of legal sources may exist. They may thus present different minimum ages for the same issue and even when a precise age is mentioned the language can lead one to question its enforceability. In order to maintain coherence, an analytical framework has been developed and followed uniformly to arrive at the interpretations presented in the summary table.
Where no information is provided, this is indicated by a cross (X); where the information is available but not sufficiently clear, or is self-contradictory, a question mark (?) is used. Where the information indicates a change in legislation or a division of competence in federal States or a particular situation or exception that begs closer scrutiny, a star (*) is placed beside the number. Otherwise, the information provided in the reports is translated into a precise number or "No minimum", according to each specific case. In most situations the age defined by a precise number is the lowest legally permissible for completing compulsory education, entering employment, contracting marriage and being attributed criminal responsibility. In many other cases the figure has been inferred following close consideration of the four main areas according to the principles outlined below.
