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Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) - Bosnia and Herzegovina (RATIFICATION: 1993)

Other comments on C138

Observation

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Article 9(1) of the Convention. Penalties, labour inspection and application of the Convention in practice. Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Sprska. Following its previous comments, the Committee takes note of the detailed statistics provided by the Government, in its report, regarding the employment rates and principal characteristics of working age population in FBiH. Among other information, the Government communicates statistics on the number of young persons under the age of 18 legally employed (for example, 659 in 2019, 128 in 2020 and 75 in 2021). The Government also indicates that the Federal Administration for Inspection Affairs of FBiH did not find any violations of section 20 of the Law on Labour Relations, which relates to the prohibition of the employment of children under the age of 15 years. Therefore, no penalties have been imposed with regard to this provision.

Regarding Republika Sprska, the Committee notes that, according to the data from the Report on Work of Republic Administration for Inspectional Affairs – labour inspection, within the reporting period, there were no persons under the age of 15 who were employed. In addition, according to the data provided by Republika Srpska, 95 and 92 young persons aged 15 to 18 were employed in 2020 and 2021 respectively, while there were 2,147 jobseekers of that age in 2020 and 1,065 in 2021.

The Committee notes that, according to an ILO factsheet on the Overview of the informal economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2020, employment in the informal sector amounts to 30.5 per cent in the country. Considering the importance of the informal economy in the country, the Committee observes that children under the age of 15 years could potentially be found in informal work or employment, that children aged 15 to 18 years could also be employed in hazardous work in the informal economy, and that these children may be difficult to identify and reached through regular labour inspections. In that regard, the expansion of the relevant monitoring mechanisms to the informal economy can be an important way to ensure that the Convention is applied in practice, particularly in countries where expanding the scope of the implementing legislation to address children working in the informal economy does not seem a practicable solution (General Survey on the fundamental Conventions, 2012, paragraph 345). The Committee accordingly requests the Government to provide information on any measures taken to obtain data on the number of children working in the informal economy in the FBiH and Republika Sprska. In this regard, it encourages the Government to reinforce the capacities of the labour inspectorates of the FBiH and Republika Sprska and widen their scope of intervention to fully and adequately address participation in informal economic activity by children, or take other measures to ensure their detection. Finally, the Committee requests the Government to continue providing statistical data, including on the number of children below the minimum age engaged in economic activities and the number of young persons engaged in hazardous work in the FBiH and the Republika Srpska.

2. Brčko District.The Committee once again requests the Government to provide information on the application of section 173(1)(j) and (hhh) of the Labour Law of the Brčko District No. 34/19 of 2019 in practice, in particular the number and nature of violations detected and the penalties imposed.