Children’s right to education is being seriously undermined in dozens of countries by contradictory laws that allow them to work, be married or held criminally responsible at an age when they are legally bound to be in school, concludes a new report. “In the same country,” concludes Angela Melchiorre, children’s rights expert and the author of ‘At what age…are children employed, married and taken to court?’, “it is not rare to find that children are legally obliged to go to school until they are 14 or 15 years old but that a different law allows them to work at an earlier age or to be married at the age of 12 or to be criminally responsible from the age of seven.” The report, launched on the occasion of Education for All Week (April 19-25), found that there is no compulsory education in at least 25 States, of which ten are in sub-Saharan Africa.