Child Labour at the Motorway Construction – the Ombudsman on the Rights of Children and the Duties of the Authorities

Child Labour at the Motorway Construction – the Ombudsman on the Rights of Children and the Duties of the Authorities

There is no such rule according to which organs of child protection should be informed if the Labour Inspectorate finds an employee of childhood during an investigation. According to the Ombudsman such a lack of legal norms endangers the right of children to protection and care and their right to legal safety. Máté Szabó has made this statement after press news mentioned that employees of childhood age were found at the construction of the M7 motorway.

International accords prohibiting child labour are also in force in Hungary. Employers employing minors despite legal prohibition can be fined even for HUF several million, but this is not sufficient to eliminate the problem and the causes making children to take up jobs. The cooperation of all the respective organs would be necessary which would include communication among authorities. The role of child welfare services and other organs appointed for the protection of children is outstanding because it is their task to perceive, signalise and explore conditions that would lead to the employment of children. In case the cause of the employment of children is a situation of financial difficulty and social exposure it may mean a proper protection of a child if the family is supported by the means of social provision.

Though according to public perception there is no child labour at all in Hungary, or it occurs only in some conspicuous cases, yet one can regularly meet children distributing leaflets, working at harvest and doing other seasonal jobs, or washing windscreens at road crossings, and even begging. These activities, however, are not regarded as work by the society, and the children themselves mostly do not experience it as exploitation: they see a possibility of earning money if they go to work instead of attending school.

The Labour Inspectorate has assured the Ombudsman that they treat the cases of children with special attention, and if possible, would hear the child in the presence of a parent or legal representative. In the specific case, however, it was revealed from the Minutes taken of the testimony of the minor on the spot that the child was not given information understandable by him about his rights, and when the hearing took place his father was not present though he had also been working at the construction of the motorway and he was also heard at the time of the inspection on the spot.

In his investigation launched after the press reports on the construction of the M7 the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights has found that currently there are no special rules of procedure to be applied expressly in the case of children, therefore if the employment of a minor is found during on-the-spot investigations, the inspectors act in the ‘usual' way that is in the manner they proceed in the case of adult employees. The Labour Inspectorates are uncertain because of the lack of legal rules whether they have to signalise the employment of minors running counter to law. They decide upon signalisation according to the ‘gravity of the case', namely on the basis of the child's age. In this specific case they did not inform the public notary or the child welfare service competent by the actual stay of the child and they did not do so even when the county guardianship office requested it more than a month after the inspection. One more month passed when the Labour Inspectorate informed the guardianship office competent on the basis of the registered residence hence no steps whatsoever were taken that would have been necessary for the protection of the child.

The investigation has also pointed out the omission of the local notary as well as of the child welfare service. Though in fact they did not receive signalisation officially, the notary had to be aware of child labour, for himself as well as the mayor made statements to several national press organs that children living in the village did undertake jobs at the motorway construction. They also said that families even moved to the place from Borsod County to work on the motorway construction. Thus the notary, as a first instance guardianship authority responsible for the protection of children, should have noticed that the child involved in the case was endangered and he should have taken the necessary steps to take the child affected by the labour inspection into protection. In fact the illegal employment of a 13 year-old child during the academic year qualifies as endangering a minor and in that case the notary has to take the necessary measures.

All in all, the Ombudsman has found that despite the fact that the employment of minors below the age of 15 is strictly prohibited by law neither the labour inspection authority nor the organs with a duty to protect children are prepared and do not know what to do when they find a child working. In this respect the Commissioner has recalled that in the spirit of Article 3 of the Accord on Children's Rights state organs have to consider in every case the interest of the child above all.