The Formal Conditions of the Employer`s Criminal Liability for Employing Children in The laws of Iran Iraqi and International Documents

Abstract

The employer is criminally questioned if he employs children without considering the formal conditions of their employment according to the law. These conditions are: not taking into consideration the child's age, not performing periodic medical examinations, not keeping his records, paying no attention to the allowed working hours for children. This research is a descriptive, analytical, and comparative one in which we do attempt to check the terms mentioned in the laws of Iran, Iraq and international agreements. The results of this research showed that the age of a child to work according to Iranian and Iraqi law and international agreements is between 15 and 18 years, with a condition that a medical examination is performed by a specialized medical committee. The examination is repeated every year until they reach the age of majority. Regarding the working hours allowed for children there is a simple difference between the Iranian and the Iraqi laws, the maximum working hours allowed for children in the Iranian law is 7 and a half hours, and in the Iraqi law it is 7 hours at most. As for international documents; which deal with formal conditions for children's labor, we can mention as an example the Convention on the Minimum Working Age of 1973, which defined the minimum working age for children aged 18 years. Also, Convention No. 77 and Convention No. 78 of 1946 for industrial and non-industrial activities, which state the necessity of the medical examination for children under the age of 18. Also, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which indicates the necessity of regulating working hours, and other international agreements. Also, there are many important international agreements that recommend the necessity of protecting the rights of children in the internal laws of the countries, but they do not explain the formal conditions for the criminal responsibility of the employer, which can be defined as the set of conditions that precede signing the employment contract between the juveniles and the employer and that any violation to the terms of the contract will bring the criminal responsibility on the employer.