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Employment of children aged below 14 years under apprenticeship contracts

Article 6 of the Convention

Minimum age

In its previous comment, the Committee noted that section 58 of the General Labour Act excludes apprentices from the general prohibition of employment of children aged below 14 years, and is thus at variance with Article 6 of the Convention, according to which the minimum age for employment of children as part of a training programme is 14 years. The Committee asked the Government to indicate the measures taken or envisaged to ensure that children aged below 14 years would not be employed as apprentices.

In its report, the Government indicates that in practice, children of less than 14 years of age can be admitted to apprenticeships, and also refers to this in the part of its report concerning the exclusions allowed under Article 4 of the Convention.

Article 4 of the Convention states that, in so far as necessary, the competent authority, after consultation with the organizations of employers and workers concerned, where such exist, may exclude from the application of this Convention limited categories of employment or work in respect of which special and substantial problems of application arise (paragraph 1), and that the competent authority must list in its first report any categories which may have been excluded, giving the reasons for such exclusion.

The Committee notes, first, that the Government did not indicate in its first report that apprentices would be excluded from the application of the minimum age provisions, and second, that such an exclusion would have been inadmissible, given that the minimum age of 14 years for employment of minors as part of an apprenticeship is expressly stated in a specific provision of the Convention, namely, Article 6, according to which the minimum age for employment in undertakings as part of a training programme is 14 years.

Conditions of apprenticeship

The Committee also noted sections 8 and 28 of the General Labour Act, according to which "the apprenticeship contract is one under the terms of which the employer is obliged to provide practical instruction through work, paid or unpaid, on a trade or skill, for a fixed period which may not exceed two years. This provision includes trade apprenticeships and activities involving the use of machinery".

Article 6 of the Convention stipulates the conditions of such an apprenticeship, namely, that it must be an integral part of a course of education or training for which a school or training institution is primarily responsible, a programme of training mainly or entirely in an undertaking, which programme has been approved by the competent authority, or a programme of guidance or orientation designed to facilitate the choice of an occupation or of a line of training. The purpose of such conditions is to prevent apprenticeship contracts from being used to employ children of 14 years of age under conditions and for wages that are below established standards. Moreover, in this case, the children concerned are under 14 years of age.

The Committee notes that in implementation of the provisions of sections 58 and 28 of the General Labour Act, children aged below 14 years can work as apprentices, with or without pay, under conditions that fall short of those set out in Article 6 of the Convention. The Committee hopes that the Government will take the necessary measures to ensure that the provisions of the Convention are applied with regard to the minimum age for employment under apprenticeship contracts and the conditions of such employment.

Dangerous work

The Committee notes that according to section 28 of the General Labour Act, apprenticeship contracts can be concluded for activities involving the use of machinery. Given that such contracts can be concluded with children aged below 14 years, the Committee requests the Government to provide information on such activities, and recalls that the Convention prohibits employment in occupations which by their nature and the conditions in which they are performed can pose risks to the health of young people aged below 18 years.

The Committee hopes that the Government will take the necessary measures to fix at 14 years the minimum age for admission to apprenticeship, to establish, through consultations with the employers’ and workers’ organizations concerned, the conditions under which such work can be performed, and to prohibit employment of apprentices to do dangerous work.

Child labour in rural areas

The Committee notes that, under the terms of section 1 of Regulating Decree No. 224 of 23 August 1943, agricultural workers are not covered by the provisions of the General Labour Act.

Given that children in rural areas make up a high proportion of working boys and girls, according to data given in the Plan of Action for the progressive elimination of child labour produced by the Inter-Institutional Commission for the Elimination of Child Labour, the Committee hopes that the Government will take the necessary measures to ensure that the Convention is applied to minors working in rural areas, in particular with regard to the minimum age for employment and protection from employment in dangerous work. The Committee hopes that the Government will provide information on this question.