Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2018, published 108th ILC session (2019)

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 noted from the 2015 Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict that Palestinian and Israeli children continued to be affected by the prevailing situation of military occupation, conflict and closure with at least 561 children who were killed and 4,271 children injured. It also noted the concerns raised by 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, about the continuous use of Palestinian children as human shields and informants by Israeli military forces and that almost all of those who used children as human shields have remained unpunished. Furthermore, the CRC expressed concern that 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 urged 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 and 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.

The Committee notes the Government’s indication that it is regularly engaging with the Office of the Secretary-General as well as with other UN bodies to address the issues raised in its Report of 2015 and by the CRC. The Committee notes from the UNICEF Annual Bulletin 2016 on Children and Armed Conflict that there were no documented cases of recruitment and use of children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Moreover, the Committee notes that the Report of the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict, 16 May 2018, and the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, 14 June 2018, do not mention any instances of using or recruiting of children for armed conflict.

Application of the Convention in practice. Following its previous comments, the Committee notes from the Government’s report the excerpts of the findings of the national survey on prostitution conducted by the Ministries of Social Affairs and Public Security. The Committee notes that, according to this information, 1,260 minors were found to be active in prostitution or at risk of being involved in prostitution. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on any investigations, prosecutions, convictions and penalties applied under section 199 (procuring a prostitute), section 201 (inducing another to perform an act of prostitution with another) and section 202 (inducing another to engage in prostitution) of the Penal Code, in relation to children under 18 years of age.