Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2024, published 113rd ILC session (2025)

Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) - Saudi Arabia (Ratification: 2001)

Articles 3(a), 7(1) and 7(2)(a) and (b) of the Convention. Forced labour of children, penalties, preventing the engagement of children in the worst forms of child labour and providing direct assistance for their removal as well as for their rehabilitation and social integration. Children engaged in begging. The Committee notes with regret the absence of information, in the Government’s report, regarding the investigations and prosecutions of persons who use children for begging as well as the measures taken for the protection of children engaged in begging. The Committee once again requests the Government to provide information on: (i) the measures taken to ensure that thorough investigations and prosecutions of persons who use children for begging are carried out; (ii) the number of reported violations, investigations, prosecutions, convictions and penalties imposed related to the use of child labour for begging; and (iii) the number of children removed, rehabilitated and socially integrated, including foreign nationals, and the nature of the assistance provided.

Application in practice. The Committee notes the Government’s indication, in its report under the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138), that the possibility of conducting a national survey on child labour is being studied by the General Authority for Statistics, in collaboration with the ILO, and in the framework of the National Action Plan for the Elimination of Child Labour. The Committee strongly encourages the Government to build up a statistical database on child labour which will include information on the worst forms of child labour. In this regard, it requests the Government to provide information on the progress made on the national survey on child labour. It once again requests the Government to provide information on the nature, extent and trends of the worst forms of child labour, as well as on the number of infringements reported, investigations, prosecutions, convictions and penal sanctions applied.