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

Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) - Hungary (Ratification: 2000)

Article 5 of the Convention. Monitoring mechanisms. Trafficking. Following its previous comments, the Committee notes the Government’s information that a National Crime Prevention Strategy 2013–23, aimed at increasing the efficiency of crime prevention, was adopted in October 2013, within which a National Strategy for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings 2013–16 was adopted. The Government report indicates that this strategy, which aims to establish an effective system of identifying victims of trafficking, punishing perpetrators of trafficking in persons and providing protection to victims of trafficking will pay special attention to the protection of children. In this regard, several training courses were organized by the police headquarters dedicated to trends in trafficking in persons, identification, protection and assistance to victims of trafficking, as well as investigation of cases of trafficking in persons.

Article 7(2). Clause (d). Identifying and reaching out to children at special risk. Roma children. In its previous comments, the Committee noted the adoption of the National Strategy of Social Integration (NSSI) in December 2011, a ten-year project which included the integration of the Roma as one of the priority areas of intervention. It also noted that the NSSI gives special priority to helping disadvantaged children, especially Roma children, to gain access to quality schooling, and aims to achieve several key objectives with regard to education, such as the strengthening of support services within and outside schools in order to prevent drop outs, or the creation of grants and bursaries for disadvantaged children, including Roma children, to make them more successful in school.

The Committee notes from the report of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, entitled; Education: the situation of Roma in 11 EU Member States that among the EU Member States, Hungary has the highest rates of Roma children with preschool experience of 92 per cent. This report also indicates that the rate of Roma children not in compulsory schooling is 5 per cent in Hungary. However, this report indicated that Hungary recorded the highest share 51 per cent of Roma who dropped out while still in compulsory schooling. The Committee also notes that the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its concluding observations of 14 October 2014, expressed concern at the continued segregation of Roma children in separate classes and schools, and limited access of asylum-seeking children into education. The Committee requests the Government to pursue its efforts, within the framework of the NSSI, to protect Roma children from the worst forms of child labour, particularly through initiatives to facilitate their access to free, basic and quality education and to provide for their inclusive education in mainstream schools. It once again requests the Government to provide information on the impact of the measures taken in this respect, particularly with regard to increasing school attendance and completion rates and decreasing school drop-out rates among Roma children.