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ABSTRACT
What happens when children use their own understandings of their human rights to question international standards in the very places where these are adopted and monitored? In this article, we study the encounters of Latin American working children’s movements with members of the European Parliament in Brussels and with ILO staff in Geneva, in an attempt to influence the assessment of Bolivia’s Law 548. The law was drafted with the help of a working children’s movement and diverges from international norms by providing protection to working children of 10 years and older. We invoke the concept of ‘translation’ to analyse how and why the notions of ‘protagonismo infantil’, ‘work as a part of education’, and ‘the right to work in dignity’ were used to challenge the dominant anti-child labour discourse of the EU and the ILO. While these efforts were not successful in a conventional way, we argue that they were important for the political consciousness of Latin American working children’s movements and strengthened their belief that the real defenders of working children’s rights are not the international organisations claiming to act on their behalf, but working children themselves.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Karl Hanson, Yvan Droz, Olga Nieuwenhuys and Jessica Taft for their valuable comments on previous versions of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Edward van Daalen is a PhD researcher in law at the Centre for Children’s Rights Studies (CCRS) of the University of Geneva and a visiting researcher at the Sciences Po Law School. His work explores the relationship between resistance and international law.
Nicolas Mabillard is a PhD researcher in anthropology at the Centre for Children’s Rights Studies (CCRS) of the University of Geneva and a visiting researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights in Vienna. He is currently studying the practice of working children’s rights in Senegal.
Notes
1 Translation by David Böcking, ‘Bolivia, The Proud Child Laborers’, Spiegel Online (2016), http://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/child-labor-in-bolivia-is-legally-permissable-a-1130131.html (accessed February 7, 2018).
2 Article 7 of C138 defines light work as work which is not likely to be harmful to children’s health or development and which does not interfere with schooling or vocational training.
3 Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2015: Bolivia, Events of 2014’, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/bolivia#bc9305 (accessed February 7, 2018).
4 For a more detailed analysis of the events leading up to the adoption of Law 548 and of the law itself see Lorenza B. Fontana and Jean Grugel, ‘To Eradicate or to Legalize? Child Labor Debates and ILO Convention 182 in Bolivia’, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 21, no. 1 (2015): 61–78; and Manfred Liebel, ‘Protecting the Rights of Working Children Instead of Banning Child Labour: Bolivia Tries a New Legislative Approach’, The International Journal of Children’s Rights 23, no. 3 (2015): 529–47.
5 See also Edward van Daalen, Karl Hanson, and Olga Nieuwenhuys, ‘Children’s Rights as Living Rights: The Case of Street Children and a New Law in Yogyakarta, Indonesia’, The International Journal of Children’s Rights 24, no. 4 (2016): 803–25.
6 See, for example, Koen de Feyter et al., eds., The Local Relevance of Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Mark Goodale, Surrendering to Utopia: An Anthropology of Human Rights (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2009); Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry, eds., The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Manfred Liebel, ed., Children’s Rights from Below: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012).
7 Karl Hanson and Olga Nieuwenhuys, ‘Living Rights, Social Justice, Translations’, in Reconceptualizing Children’s Rights in International Development: Living Rights, Social Justice, Translations, ed. Karl Hanson and Olga Nieuwenhuys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
8 See Marianne Dahlén, ‘The Negotiable Child: The ILO Child Labour Campaign 1919–1973’ (PhD diss., University of Uppsala, 2007).
9 Edward van Daalen and Karl Hanson, ‘The ILO’s Shifts in Child Labour Policy: Regulation and Abolishment’, International Development Policy 11 (forthcoming).
10 See, for example, the ILO ‘Resolution Concerning the International Year of the Child and the Progressive Elimination of Child labour and Transitional Measures’, adopted by the International Labour Conference at its 65th Session in 1979.
11 Van Daalen and Hanson, ‘The ILO’s Shifts’.
12 Olga Nieuwenhuys, ‘Embedding the Global Womb: Global Child Labour and the New Policy Agenda’, Children’s Geographies 5, no. 1–2 (2007): 149–63.
13 Arne Vandaele, International Labour Rights and the Social Clause: Friends or Foes (London: Cameron May, 2005).
14 Van Daalen and Hanson, ‘The ILO’s Shifts’.
15 See Article 2 of the Declaration, https://www.ilo.org/declaration/thedeclaration/textdeclaration/lang--en/index.htm (accessed September 24, 2018).
16 Bob Hepple, ‘Is the Eradication of Child Labour ‘Within Reach’? Achievements and Challenges Ahead’, in Child Labour in a Globalized World: A Legal Analysis of ILO Action, ed. Giuseppe Nesi, Luca Nogler, and Marco Pertile (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 418.
17 See Target 8.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 (accessed September 24, 2018).
18 See Jean Grugel, ‘“Speaking Out” About Child Labour: Normative Entrenchment in an Uncertain Regime’, in EU Policy Responses to a Shifting Multilateral System, ed. Esther Barbé Izuel, Oriol Costa, and Robert Kissack (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 179–99.
19 Ibid., 180.
20 See, for example, Nieuwenhuys, ‘Embedding the Global Womb’; Michael Bourdillon, Deborah Levison, William Myers, and Ben White, eds., Rights and Wrongs of Children’s Work (London: Rutger’s University Press, 2010); Manfred Liebel, ‘Opinion, Dialogue, Review: The New ILO Report on Child Labour: A Success Story, or the ILO Still at a Loss?’, Childhood 14, no. 2 (2007): 279–84; David Mark Smolin, ‘Conflict and Ideology in the International Campaign Against Child Labour’, Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal 16, no. 2 (1999): art. 3; Dahlén, ‘The Negotiable Child’; Karl Hanson and Arne Vandaele, ‘Working Children and International Labour Law: A Critical Analysis’, The International Journal of Children’s Rights 11, no. 1 (2003): 73–146; van Daalen and Hanson, ‘The ILO’s Shifts’.
21 Insights for this subsection mainly stem from the authors’ own empirical observations while researching working children’s movements.
22 Mark Goodale, ‘Locating Rights, Envisioning Law between the Global and the Local’, in The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local, ed. Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 25.
23 For more on working children’s movements see Olga Nieuwenhuys, ‘From Child Labour to Working Children’s Movements’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies, ed. Jens Qvortrup, William Arnold Corsaro, and Michael-Sebastian Honig (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 289–300; Manfred Liebel, A Will of their Own: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Working Children (London: Zed Books, 2004); Karl Hanson, Diana Volonakis, and Mohammed Al-Rozzi, ‘Child Labour, Working Children and Children’s Rights’, in Routledge International Handbook of Children’s Rights Studies, ed. Wouter Vandenhole, Ellen Desmet, Didier Reynaert, and Sara Lembrechts (London: Routledge, 2015), 316–30; Jessica Taft, ‘“Adults Talk Too Much”: Intergenerational Dialogue and Power in the Peruvian Movement of Working Children’, Childhood 22, no. 4 (2015): 460–73; and Jessica K. Taft, ‘Continually Redefining Protagonismo: The Peruvian Movement of Working Children and Political Change, 1976–2015’, Latin American Perspectives (October 2017), http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0094582X17736037 (accessed March 23, 2018).
24 The Concern for Working Children, ‘The Kundapur Declaration’, http://www.concernedforworkingchildren.org/empowering-children/childrens-unions/the-kundapur-declaration/ (accessed March 23, 2018).
25 These conferences were held to inform the drafting of the 1999 ILO Conventions on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (C182). For more see Anthony Swift, Working Children get Organised. An Introduction to Working Children’s Organisations (London: International Save the Children Alliance, 1999).
26 United Nations’ General Assembly, ‘Resolution S-27/2. A World Fit for Children’, http://www.un-documents.net/s27r2.htm (accessed on March 23, 2018).
27 See Anna Holzscheiter, ‘Representation as Power and Performance Practice: Global Civil Society Advocacy for Working Children’, Review of International Studies 42, no. 2 (2016): 205–26.
28 The ILO global conferences on child labour that followed were held in The Hague (2010), Brasilia (2013), and Buenos Aires (2017).
29 European Parliament, ‘Question for Oral Answer to the Commission: GSP+ (Generalised Scheme of Preferences) and Compliance with Minimum Age Convention: Case of Bolivia (Debate)’, Strasbourg (September 15, 2014), http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20140915&secondRef=ITEM-020&language=EN (accessed on February 2, 2018).
30 Bruce Wardhaugh, ‘GSP+ and Human Rights: Is the EU’s Approach the Right One?’, Journal of International Economic Law 16, no. 4 (2013): 827–46.
31 European Parliament, ‘Question for Oral Answer’.
32 European Parliament, ‘European Parliament Resolution of 21 November 2013 on Fair Justice in Bolivia, in Particular the Cases of Előd Tóásó and Mario Tadić (2013/2953(RSP))’, Strasbourg (November 21, 2013), http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2013-0518&language=EN (accessed on February 2, 2018).
33 The Exchange of Views took place during a meeting of the Committee on Development on 21 January 2015. For brief minutes of the meeting, see http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/documents/deve/pv/1046/1046562/1046562en.pdf (accessed on September 26, 2018).
34 The Spanish party Podemos in particular was instrumental for the organisation of the debate.
35 For more details, see http://www.belgicannats.org/360/ (accessed on September 26, 2018).
36 Taft, ‘Adults Talk Too Much’.
37 For more on the paradox of children’s agency see Karl Hanson, ‘Children’s Participation and Agency When They Don’t “Do the Right Thing”’, Childhood 23, no. 4 (2016): 471–75.
38 Article 12 (1) of the CRC states that: ‘States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.’
39 For a discussion of Bolivia and Argentina vis-à-vis the ‘Minimum Age Convention’, see Lorenza B. Fontana and Jean Grugel. ‘Deviant and Over-Compliance: The Domestic Politics of Child Labor in Bolivia and Argentina’, Human Rights Quarterly 39, no. 3 (2017): 631–56.
40 The CEACR is an independent body composed of legal experts charged with examining the application of ILO Conventions and Recommendations by ILO member States.
41 International Labour Office, ‘Provisional Record No. 14-2(Rev.) PART TWO, 104th Session, Geneva, June 2015: Third Item on the Agenda: Information and Reports on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations - Report of the Committee on the Application of Standards PART TWO’, Geneva (June 16, 2015): 124–8, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_375764.pdf (accessed March 24, 2018).
42 Ibid.
43 For the minutes of the discussion see https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:13100:0::NO::P13100_COMMENT_ID:3953291 (accessed September 26, 2018).
44 Susanne Zwingel, ‘How Do Norms Travel? Theorizing International Women’s Rights in Transnational Perspective’, International Studies Quarterly 56, (2012): 124.
45 https://www.etymonline.com/word/translation (accessed March 24, 2018).
46 Richard Freeman, ‘What is “Translation”?’, Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice 5, no. 4 (2009): 431.
47 Sally Engle Merry, ‘Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle’, American Anthropologist 108, no. 1 (2006): 38–51.
48 Zwingel, ‘How Do Norms Travel?’, 124.
49 Hanson and Nieuwenhuys, ‘Living Rights, Social Justice, Translations’, 16.
50 Ibid., 19.
51 Zwingel, ‘How Do Norms Travel?’, 124.
52 Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2016).
53 For an example of such ‘intergenerational dialogue’ within the Peruvian movement of working children see Taft, ‘Adults Talk Too Much’.
54 Other adults supporting the working children’s movements during the events at the EP and ILO had more instrumental parts to play. An MEP invited the working children’s movements to speak at the EP. Two German NGOs contributed to the flight tickets of the working children and their supporting adults. An academic-activist, who has been active in the movements for several decades, helped prepare the statements and arguments that were forwarded in Brussels and Geneva.
55 Taft, ‘Continually Redefining Protagonismo’.
56 Ibid.
57 Transcription of the intervention of Betzandra Gónzalez, ‘Can the Children Speak? – The Voices of Working Children and Adolescents from Latin America and the Bolivian Case’, European Parliament, Brussels (May 27, 2015).
58 See, for example, Jorge Dominic Ruiz, ‘La Concepción Andina de La Infancia y El Trabajo’, Revista Internacional NATs 7, no. 11–12 (2004): 31–37.
59 For a relevant discussion of ‘strategic essentialism’ see: Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies (New-York: Oxford University Press, 1988); and Sylvia Escárcega, ‘Authenticating Strategic Essentialisms: The Politics of Indigenousness at the United Nations’, Cultural Dynamics 22, no. 1 (2010): 3–28.
60 Interview with Juan Pablino Insfran, May 28, 2015.
61 Interview with Lourdes Cruz Sánchez, May 28, 2015.
62 Andrew Canessa, ‘Conflict, Claim and Contradiction in the New “Indigenous” State of Bolivia’, Critique of Anthropology 34, no. 2 (2014): 153–73.
63 Grugel, ‘Speaking Out’.
64 European Commision, ‘The EU Special Incentive Arrangement for Sustainable Development and Good Governance (“GSP+”) Assessment of Bolivia Covering the Period 2016 – 2017’, Brussels (2018), http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2018/january/tradoc_156539.pdf (accessed March 23, 2018).
65 Grugel, ‘Speaking Out’, 195
66 Ibid., 196.
67 For some more theoretical insights into the difficult relationship between international institutions and ‘bottom-up’ resistance see Tine Destrooper, ‘Uprooting the Curious Grapevine? The Transformative Potential of Reverse Standardsetting in the Field of Human Rights’, Journal of Human Rights 16, no. 4 (2017): 516–31; and Pierre Cardinal, ‘Resistance and International Law; De-Coloniality and Pluritopic Hermeneutics’, Inter Gentes 1, no. 1 (2016): 40–52.
68 Lourdes Cruz Sánchez, Interview by Peter Strack, ‘Más duro, que trabajar en el cementerio!’, El Blog hablando de Infancia y Adolescencia (June 30, 2015), https://gsia.blogspot.ch/2015/06/mas-duro-que-trabajar-en-el-cementerio.html (accessed March 23, 2018), our translation.
69 Ibid.
70 The conference was attended by the authors as well. For a discussion of the event see https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/edward-van-daalen-nicolas-mabillard/tale-of-two-conferences-exploring-politics-of-glob (accessed March 23, 2018).
71 Goodale, ‘Locating Rights’, 25.