Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2015, published 105th ILC session (2016)

Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) - Israel (Ratification: 2005)

Article 3 of the Convention. Worst forms of child labour. Clause (a). All forms of slavery or similar practices. Forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict. In its previous comments, the Committee urged the Government to strengthen its efforts to ensure the elimination in practice of the use of children in armed conflict. It also requested the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure that thorough investigations and prosecutions are carried out and sufficiently effective and dissuasive penalties are imposed on persons who use children under the age of 18 years for armed conflict.

The Committee notes the absence of information in the Government’s report on this point. The Committee notes from the Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, June 2015 (Report of the Secretary-General, 2015) that Palestinian and Israeli children continued to be affected by the prevailing situation of military occupation, conflict and closure. The ensuing violence had led to a dramatic increase in the number of children killed and injured with at least 561 children who were killed and 4,271 children injured. The Committee also notes that the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in its concluding observations of July 2013 in connection to the follow up to the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, expressed deep concern about the continuous use of Palestinian children as human shields and informants (14 such cases reported from 2010 to March 2013) by Israeli military forces and that almost all of those who used children as human shields have remained unpunished. The CRC further noted with deep concern that the Israeli soldiers have used Palestinian children to enter potentially dangerous buildings ahead of them or to stand in front of military vehicles in order to stop the throwing of stones against those vehicles (CRC/C/ISR/CO/2-4, paragraph 71). The Committee expresses its concern at the current situation of children affected by armed conflict. It recalls that, under Article 3(a) of the Convention, the forced or compulsory recruitment of children under 18 years of age for use in armed conflict is considered to be one of the worst forms of child labour and that, under Article 1 of the Convention, member States must take immediate and effective measures to secure the elimination of the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency. The Committee, therefore, strongly urges the Government to take immediate measures to put a stop, in practice, to the use of children under 18 years of age in armed conflict. It also urges the Government to take immediate and effective measures to ensure that thorough investigations and robust prosecutions of all persons, including members in the regular armed forces, who use children under 18 years of age in armed conflict, are carried out and that sufficiently effective and dissuasive penalties are imposed in practice. It requests the Government to provide information on the number of investigations conducted, prosecutions brought and convictions handed down against such persons.

The Committee is raising other points in a request addressed directly to the Government.