Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2025, published 114th ILC session (2026)

Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) - Kazakhstan (Ratification: 2003)

Article 3(c) of the Convention. Use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs. The Committee previously noted the information on the cases of the recruitment of children as distributors of drugs. In its reply, the Government indicates that under section 132 “Involvement of minors in criminal offences” of the Criminal Code, in 2024, 21 cases were registered, including 10 sent to court, five dismissed on rehabilitative grounds, and 10 in which the pretrial investigation period was interrupted under section 45(7)(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (failure to identify the person who committed the criminal offence). As of August 25, 2025, one case has been registered and dismissed due to insufficient evidence of a crime. The Committee requests the Government to continue to provide information on the application of section 132 of the Criminal Code in practice as regards the offences related to the use, procuring, or offering of a child for the production and trafficking of drugs, including the number of investigations, prosecutions, convictions, and penal sanctions applied.

Article 7(2). Effective and time-bound measures. Clause (a). Preventing the engagement of children in the worst forms of child labour. Access to free basic education. Regarding the Committee’s previous request for statistical information on school enrolment, completion and drop-out rates at the primary and lower secondary levels, the Government indicates that the relevant data is currently unavailable due to ongoing work on modernizing the National Education Database. It also specifies that the database update is scheduled to be finished by October 2025. Regarding access to free basic education for migrant children, the Government indicates that the Rules for Foreigners and Stateless Persons Permanently Residing in the Republic of Kazakhstan to Obtain Pre-School, Primary, Basic Secondary and General Secondary Education (adopted by the Order of the Minister of Education and Science, No. 468, of 28 September 2010) provide equal conditions for obtaining education in state educational institutions for foreign nationals and stateless persons residing in Kazakhstan.

The Committee reiterates its request to the Government to provide statistical information on school enrolment, completion and drop-out rates at the primary and lower secondary levels, once the data is available. To the extent possible, this information should be disaggregated by age, sex and national extraction.