ARGENTINA: Children's rights in International Labour Organisation reports

Summary: This report summarises individual observations and direct requests issued by the ILO Committee of Experts related to child labour conventions. To view the full reports, go to the ILOLEX database (http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/) and click on ‘display all documents related to a specific country’.

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CEACR: Individual Observation concerning Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) Argentina (ratification: 2001) Published: 2011

Article 3 of the Convention: Worst forms of child labour. Clause (a). Sale and trafficking of children.

The ILO notes that Argentina is a country of destination of trafficking for the sexual exploitation of women and young girls from the Dominican Republic, Paraguay and Brazil. Argentinian women and young girls, mostly originating from the provinces of Misiones, Tucumán, La Rioja, Chaco and Buenos Aires, are also subjected to sexual exploitation abroad, mainly in Spain and Brazil. The Committee also observed that the International Trade Union Confederation's (ITUC) comments report corruption in the police forces and the direct involvement of police officers in criminal activities related to the trafficking of persons. Furthermore, according to the ITUC, the involvement of the police is one of the significant factors explaining the increase in cases of domestic and international trafficking reported in recent years, as well as the ineffectiveness of the criminal procedures conducted to endeavour to bring those responsible for these acts to justice.

As the government reports however, since 31 July 2010, a total of 590 raids were carried out; 583 persons were arrested and 921 victims were assisted, including 204 children under 18 years of age. These cases resulted in 15 convictions for the trafficking of persons for sexual exploitation, for which the sentences ranged from four to 15 years of imprisonment.

Clause (b). Use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution.

According to the ILO, prevention of child prostitution under Argentina's penal code is somewhat ambiguous. In its previous comments, the ILO Committee noted that the provisions of the Penal Code do not cover the use of a child for prostitution. The Government, however, indicated that Act No. 26.364 of 30 April 2008 covers the use of a child for prostitution. The ILO has responded, by requesting the Government to indicate the manner in which Act No. 26.364 of 30 April 2008 makes it possible, in practice, to prosecute and punish a client for using a child under 18 years of age for prostitution.

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CEACR: Individual Observation concerning Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) Argentina (ratification: 1996) Published: 2011

The Argentinian government has recently decided to raise the minimum age for admission to employment or work from 15 to 16 years.

In a 2006 report entitled, "Childhood and adolescence: Work and other economic activities", written by ILO-IPEC, the National Statistics and Census Institute of Argentina and the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, a survey was conducted on the working conditions of children. The following results were reported:

Young persons between 5 and 17 years of age in the provinces of Córdoba and Misiones were being validated.

According to this survey, 8.4 per cent of children between 5 and 13 years of age and 29.7 per cent of children between 14 and 17 years of age are engaged in economic activity.

As regards the province of Córdoba, children between 5 and 13 years of age work particularly in many basic service-related or commercial activities.

The main areas of activity of young persons between 14 and 17 years of age are assistance in commerce, work in offices or workshops, assistance with construction or repair work and other activities in the tertiary sector such as non-residential care for elderly or sick persons.

The vast majority of children between 5 and 13 years of age in the province of Córdoba are involved in family work (72%), whereas young persons between 14 and 17 years of age generally work for an employer (44%) or on a self-employed basis.

In addition, the survey reveals that premature entry to the world of employment has a negative impact on children's success in school. Accordingly, 15% of children who worked during the week participating in the survey have repeated a school year and 50% of working adolescents do not attend school in the province of Córdoba. However, it should be noted that the percentage of young people who work and do not attend school in the other provinces of the country, as shown by the 2004 study, is lower than in the province of Córdoba (25%).

The Government of Argentina has, as part of the National Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of Child Labour, undertaken various measures in an attempt to deal with the issue of child labour. In particular, under Decree No. 1602/2009 of 29 October 2009, the provision of family benefits has been expanded and these are now awarded to children whose parents are unemployed or working in the informal or domestic sectors. Also, various training workshops have been established in order to strengthen the labour inspectorate in its action to prevent and combat child labour.

However, as the ILO Committee notes, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its concluding observations of June 2010 on the third and fourth periodic reports of Argentina (CRC/C/ARG/CO3-4, paragraph 73), noted with concern the absence of effective coordination mechanisms, as well as insufficient structures for enforcement at the provincial level.

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Countries

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