Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2023, published 112nd ILC session (2024)

Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) - Turkmenistan (Ratification: 2012)

Previous comments: observation and direct request

Article 1 of the Convention. National policy designed to ensure the effective abolition of child labour. Regarding its previous request for information on the implementation of the National Action Plan for Children’s Rights (NAPC), adopted in 2018, the Government indicates that the NAPC was renewed in 2023 until 2028, to be implemented in collaboration with UNICEF. One of its objectives is to continue monitoring the implementation of international standards in the regulatory legal instruments of Turkmenistan, and to take measures to prevent the engagement of minors in work endangering their lives and health. The Government also indicates that other measures taken include the adoption of the National Action Plan (NAP) on Human Rights 2021–25, which includes measures to ensure compliance with national legislation and strengthen monitoring; and the adoption of the State Youth Policy Act, in September 2022, which guarantees special protections to children under 18 years of age. The Committee once again requests the Government to provide information on the concrete measures taken, within the framework of the NAPC and of the NAP on Human Rights 2021–25, to eliminate child labour, and on the results achieved. It also requests the Government to provide information on the implementation of the State Youth Policy Act, in particular as regards any impact it may have on the elimination of child labour.

Article 3(2). Determination of hazardous work. Following the Committee’s previous request for information on the application in practice of Decree No. 87 of 2018 on the list of hazardous types of jobs and occupations prohibited to children under 18 years, the Government indicates that, to date, no cases of children being engaged in these types of harmful or hazardous working conditions have been detected.

Article 7(3). Determination of light work. In its previous comments, the Committee requested the Government to indicate the measures taken or envisaged to determine the light work activities which may be permitted to children of at least 15 years of age, by virtue of sections 23(5) and 60 of the Labour Code, which permit a contract of employment to be concluded with a child of 15 years with the consent of a parent or guardian and for a maximum of 24 hours per week.

The Committee notes the Government’s information according to which employment contracts with children under the age of 18 may be concluded in all types of work other than the hazardous types of work or working conditions provided for under Decree No. 87 of 2018, as long as the employment of these children is in line with labour legislation and as long as the work does not prevent the child from continuing his/her studies or harm his/her health or moral development. Moreover, the Committee notes that, according to the statistics shared by the Government on the employment of children under 18 in Turkmenistan, only one child in 2021 and two children in 2022 have been registered as being employed by Turkmenistan’s employment agencies, and 107 children as employed in large and medium-sized enterprises, representing 0.01 per cent of the total of persons so employed.

Application of the Convention in practice.The Committee requests the Government to continue to provide information on the implementation of the provisions giving effect to the Convention, including the number of inspections carried out in relation to child labour, if possible disaggregated by region and sector of the economy, and on the nature and number of violations detected and the types of sanctions imposed.