Article 14. Recognition of the inviolability of rights, liberties and guarantees
- The State recognizes as inviolable the rights and liberties granted by the Constitution and guarantees their protection.
- All public authorities have the duty to respect and guarantee the free exercise of rights and liberties and the accomplishment of constitutional or legal duties.
Article 16. The scope and meaning of rights, liberties and guarantees
- Laws and international conventions may grant rights, liberties, and guarantees not provided for in the Constitution.
- The extent and the essential content of constitutional norms regarding rights, liberties, and guarantees may not be restricted by means of interpretation.
- Constitutional and legal norms regarding fundamental rights may be interpreted and integrated in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- The law may restrict rights, liberties, and guarantees only in cases specifically provided for in the Constitution.
- Laws restricting rights, liberties, and guarantees must be general and abstract, may not be retroactive, may not reduce the extent and essential content of constitutional norms, and must be limited to what is necessary for the safeguard of other constitutionally protected rights.
Article 17. Legal enforcement
Constitutional norms regarding rights, liberties, and guarantees shall bind all public and private entities and shall be directly enforced.
Article 26. The right to life and to physical and mental integrity
- Human life and the physical and moral integrity of persons shall be inviolable.
- No one may be subjected to torture, or to cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment or treatment; and in no case shall there be the death penalty.
Article 27. The right to liberty
- The right to liberty shall be inviolable.
- Freedom of thought and expression; association; religion; worship; intellectual, artistic and cultural creation; demonstration; and other liberties consecrated by the Constitution, by laws, and by International Law or convention shall be guaranteed.
- No one may be forced to declare his ideology, religion, or political or union affiliation.
Article 28. The right to liberty and personal security
- Everyone has the right to liberty and security. No one may be deprived partially or totally of his liberty except by virtue of a judicial sentence for acts punishable under law by prison or by the judicial application of security measures.
…
Article 58. The right to work, to welfare, to holidays, and to material assistance
- All citizens shall have the right to work, and the State has the duty to create the conditions necessary for this right to be effective.
- Progressively and in accordance with national economic development, all workers shall be assured of adequate social welfare in the event of illness, industrial accident, old age, and unemployment; periodic paid holidays; rest; leisure; and material assistance.
Article 59. The right to compensation and to security of employment
- Everyone shall have the right to compensation in proportion to the quantity and quality of work and to security of employment.
- Dismissal for political or ideological reasons shall be prohibited.
- Dismissal shall be illegal without legitimate cause enacted by law.
- All workers shall have the right to dignified working conditions, to hygiene and security, to a limited working day, to rest, leisure, and weekly time off.
- Men and women shall receive equal pay for equal work.
- The law shall establish special protection for minors, for the handicapped, and for women during pregnancy and after childbirth, and shall guarantee to women working conditions which permit them to carry out their family and maternal duties.
Article 60. National minimum salary and maximum limit to working hours
The State shall set national standards regarding limiting the duration of work and shall create conditions for establishing a national minimum wage for various occupations.
Article 87. Childhood
- All children shall have the right to the special protection of the family, society, and the State to guarantee conditions necessary for the whole development of their physical and intellectual capacities, and special care in case of orphans, abandoned children, or the emotionally deprived.
- The family, society, and the State must guarantee the protection of children against any form of discrimination or oppression, as well as abusive authority from family, public or private institutions to whom they are entrusted,and also against exploitation through child labor.
- Child labor shall be prohibited during the years of compulsory schooling
Constitution of Cabo Verde (PDF)
Article 148. (Pimping)
1 - Those who promote, encourage or facilitate the exercise of prostitution or sexual acts of children under 14 or persons suffering from mental incapacity, shall be punished with imprisonment for 2-8 years.
2 - If the victim is under 16 years, the penalty is imprisonment of 1 to 5 years.
3 - The penalty referred to in the preceding paragraph shall also apply if the victim person is in a situation of extreme economic necessity and the agent have taken advantage of this situation.
Article 149. (Solicitation of minor to practice sexual act abroad)
Those who solicit, transport, harbors or receives less than 16 years, orfavor conditions for the practice of this in a foreign country, of sexual acts or prostitution shall be punished with imprisonment for 2-8 years.
Article 162 (Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment)
1 - Anyone who commits acts of torture or cruel, degrading or inhuman against another person, shall be punished with imprisonment from 2 to 6 years if a more serious punishment does not fit under other law.
2 - For the purposes of this section, it is the act of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the act by which severe pain or acute suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person that has the function of knowledge, pursuit, research, application or enforcement of penalties for offenses of any kind, or by the person exercising functions of custody, protection or surveillance of a person detained or arrested, or even by those who have, for the purpose, usurped one of those functions, in order to:
- a) obtain from him or a third confession, testimony or information;
- b) The punishment for acts committed or allegedly committed by her or third;
- c) intimidate or to intimidate another person.
Article 163 (Aggravation)
1 - The penalty is imprisonment from 5 to 12 years if the conduct described in Article antecedent:
a) Causing serious bodily harm or mental harm to the victim;
b) is performed with particularly violent methods, vexatious or serious, including by electric shocks, systematic beatings, sexual abuse the victim or his family, mock execution or use of hallucinatory substances.
2 - The penalty is imprisonment from 8 to 15 years if the conduct resulting disease serious and incurable disease, suicide or death of the victim.
Article 268 (Genocide)
A penalty of 15 to 25 years' imprisonment shall be imposed as punishment upon anyone who, as part of the execution of a concerted plan, and with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, religious or other group identified on the basis of some arbitrary criterion, carries out any of the following acts with respect to members of that group:
(b) deportation, enslavement, or abduction followed by disappearance;
Article 271 (Slavery)
A penalty of six to 12 years' imprisonment shall be imposed as punishment upon anyone who reduces another person to the state or condition of a slave, or who sells, transfers or buys another person, or who possesses another person with the intent of keeping that person in a state of slavery.
Article 272 (Crimes against persons subject to protection in a situation of armed conflict)
A penalty of 10 to 20 years' imprisonment shall be imposed as punishment upon anyone who, in violation of the provisions of international law, in a situation of armed conflict, carries out against any person subject to protection
(d) deportation, enslavement, or kidnapping or abduction,
(e) forced conscription into enemy armed forces,
unless some more severe penalty applies pursuant to some other legal provision.
Article 278 (Other crimes against the international community)
A penalty of one year's to three years' imprisonment shall be imposed as punishment upon anyone who, in time of war, armed conflict or occupation, carries out or orders the carrying out of any other act that constitutes a breach or violation of the provisions contained in international agreements by which Cape Verde is bound, relating to the conduct of hostilities, the protection of the injured, ailing and shipwrecked, the treatment of prisoners of war, and the protection of civilians in the event of war, armed conflict or occupation.
Article 271-A (Trafficking in Persons)
1. Whoever offers, delivers, induces, accepts, transports, accommodates or welcomes a person for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation or organ extraction:
a) by violence, kidnapping or serious threat;
b) By deception or fraudulent maneuver;
c) By abuse of authority resulting from a relationship of hierarchical, economic, work or family dependence;
d) By taking advantage of the victim's psychic incapacity or special vulnerability; or
e) By obtaining the consent of the person having control over the victim shall be punished by imprisonment of 4 to 10 years.
2. the same penalty shall be imposed on any person who, by any means, induces, transports, accommodates or accepts a minor, or delivers, offers or accepts him/her, for purposes of sexual exploitation, labour exploitation or organ extraction.
3. In the case provided for in the preceding subparagraph, if the staff member uses any of the means provided for in subparagraphs (1) or acts profitally or with intent to make a profit, he shall be punished by imprisonment of between 6 and 12 years.
4. Any person who, by payment or other consideration, offers, delivers, solicits or accepts a minor, or obtains or gives consent for his adoption, shall be punished by imprisonment from 1 to 5 years.
5. Whoever, having knowledge of the crime foreseen in numbers 1 and 2, uses the services or organs of the victim shall be punished by imprisonment from 1 to 5 years, if a more serious penalty is not applicable to him by virtue of another legal provision.
6. Whoever detains, conceals, damages or destroys identity or travel documents of a person who is a victim of a crime provided for in paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be punished by imprisonment of up to 3 years, if a more serious penalty does not fall under another legal provision
7. Victims of trafficking in persons shall not be held criminally liable for having entered the national territory illegally or for having participated in any way in illegal activities, insofar as they are the direct consequence of their situation as victim.
CRIMINAL CODE (PDF)