Abstract
Exercising the child's right to work requires a good legislative framework for labour relations and a set of conditions prescribed to ensure that the minors work in a way that does not harm their safety, health, physical, mental and moral development and does not interfere with their education. The aim of this paper is to consider both the international and national standards regulating the children's work and challenges in their application in practice. It also points out the necessary actions aimed at improving the position of the minors in the labour law environment. A special attention is paid to the issues related to the prohibition of discrimination against children in the field of work, the consent for employment including the regulation of the minimum age for employment and protection at work. The paper focuses in particular on the issue of the implementation of labour legislation in practice of Republic of Serbia, especially in the context of the efficiency of control mechanisms and the results of inspections conducted in 2019 by the Labour Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, which revealed a series of violations of the child's right to work. In this paper, in order to grasp an insight into this issue, there have been used the historical comparative-legal and theoretical-analytical methods. The research findings indicate that the national labour legislation regulating the minors` work is harmonised with the international standards to a significant extent, but there is a room for their improvement. It is also necessary to improve the mechanisms of inspection and the efficiency of the application of legislative provisions in practice.
Highlights
Exercising the child’s right to work requires a good legislative framework for labour relations and a set of conditions prescribed to ensure that the minors work in a way that does not harm their safety, health, physical, mental and moral development and does not interfere with their education
One of the guaranteed rights in this document is the child’s right to work. This includes, among other things, the obligation of states to regulate their labour legislation so that the exercise of this right does not harm the child’s safety, health, physical, mental, moral and social development or interfere with the child’s education. This implies providing for a minimum age for admission to employment and meeting a number of other conditions in the work environment that are specific to working children
The Council Directive 94/33/EC on the protection of young people at work includes a set of provisions aimed at ensuring the exercise of the child’s rights and their protection against economic exploitation and against any work likely to harm their safety, health or physical, mental, moral or social development or to jeopardise their education (Article 1). It comprehensively regulates the issue of exercising the child’s right to work in line with the standards of the International Labour Organization, specifying certain working conditions that allow their more precise incorporation into the national legislation of individual countries, such as precise determination of working time and its harmonisation with educational programmes, the obligation of free medical examination, the prohibition of performing work that carries a risk to health, as well as the prohibition of night work and the provision of exceptions in which such work is allowed
Summary
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Law on the Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1996), as a comprehensive and most important document in the field of child’s rights, defines child as every human being below the age of eighteen years. In addition to health protection, it has to be taken into account that children are not allowed to perform work that will affect their growing up and psychological formation, such as work in casinos, night clubs, places of prostitution, etc This short introduction shows well how serious this issue is and how delicate it is to regulate this issue, and to monitor the implementation of regulations, and to create the conditions that, on the one hand, ensure the child’s right to work for children who need work and create appropriate working conditions, and on the other hand, prevent the abuse and exploitation of children in the work environment and ensure the protection of their rights in case of violations
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