Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2019, published 109th ILC session (2021)

Minimum Age (Industry) Convention (Revised), 1937 (No. 59) - Paraguay (Ratification: 1966)

Article 2(2) of the Convention. Minimum age for admission to employment in industrial undertakings. In its previous comments, the Committee requested the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure that, in accordance with Article 2(2) of the Convention, the employment of children under 15 years of age may be authorized only in undertakings in which “only” members of the employer’s family are employed.

The Committee notes the Government’s indications in its report that the Code on Children and Young Persons authorizes young persons (from 14 to 17 years of age) to work only in safe circumstances that are not dangerous and that the established minimum age for dangerous work is 18 years.

The Committee also notes that under Chapter II, Part I, section 119, of the Labour Code (Act No. 213/93 establishing the Labour Code), “minors under 15 years of age may not work in any public or private industrial enterprise or any office thereof, other than those in which only members of the employer’s family are employed and provided that by its nature or the circumstances in which it is performed the work does not endanger the life, health or morals of minors.” Similarly, section 125 of the Labour Code lists the types of work in which it is prohibited to employ children under the age of 18 years, such as: (i) work related to alcoholic beverages; (ii) tasks or services likely to affect their morals or moral practices; (iii) itinerant work, without special authorization; (iv) dangerous or unhealthy work; (v) work for longer hours than their physical strength allows or that may hinder or delay normal physical development; and (vi) night work, during the periods provided for under section 122 and other periods determined by law.