Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2025, published 114th ILC session (2026)

Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) - Kazakhstan (Ratification: 2001)

Labour inspection and application of the Convention in practice. The Committee notes that the Government’s report provides data on the total number of labour inspections carried out in 2024 and 2025. The Government also indicates that, based on information from the territorial offices of the State Labour Inspectorate Committee, no violations related to child labour were recorded.

The Committee further notes, from the 2024 publication of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), “A Situation Analysis of Children and Adolescents in Kazakhstan”, that in 2023, 3 per cent of children aged 5-14 were working. Furthermore, the 2024 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey found that 8 per cent of children aged 5–17 were involved in child labour. The Committee also notes that the Action Plan on Human Rights and the Rule of Law (adopted by the President’s Decree, No. 409, of December 8, 2023) envisages measures related to children’s rights, such as: (1) collecting comprehensive data on the identification of child labour; and (2) developing proposals for conducting on-site and unscheduled inspections, as well as strengthening labour inspections systems. The Committee also observes that in its detailed comments made in relation to the Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81), and the Labour Inspection (Agriculture) Convention, 1969 (No. 129), it noted the continuous limitations and restrictions of labour inspections, including as regards the ability of labour inspectors to undertake inspection visits and the frequency of inspections. The Committee strongly urges the Government to take the necessary measures to strengthen the labour inspection services in order to improve the capacity of labour inspectors to detect cases of child labour. In this respect, the Committee requests the Government to provide information on the implementation of the measures related to children’s rights set out in the Action Plan on Human Rights and the Rule of Law. It also requests the Government to continue to provide information on the number of inspections on child labour carried out by state labour inspectors as well as by other agencies, and the number and nature of violations detected and penalties imposed in this regard.

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