Dominant Discourses, Debates and Silences on Child Labour in Africa and Asia

Abstract

Drawing on the relevant literature, this article explores key debates and controversies on child labour in the context of Africa and Asia. It first identifies and analyses three dominant discourses on child labour: 1) the work-free childhoods perspective; 2) the socio-cultural perspective; and 3) the political economy perspective. Against the backdrop of these discourses, the article goes on to critically examine aspects of child labour that are underrepresented in the literature and in international policy circles. It concludes by highlighting the importance of grounding children's gendered work within the complex material social practices of interconnected histories and geographies in which their livelihoods unfold.

Notes

1 J Ennew, WE Myers & DP Plateau, ‘Defining child labour as if human rights really matter’, in BH Weston (ed), Child Labour and Human Rights: Making Children Matter, London: Lynne Rienner, 2005.

2 A Bequele & J Boyden (eds), Combating Child Labour, Geneva: International Labour Office,1988; A Invernizzi, ‘Street-working children and adolescents in Lima: work as an agent of socialization’, Childhood, 10(3), 2003, pp 319–341; and S Aitken, SL Estrada, J Jennings & LM Aguirre, ‘Reproducing life and labour: global processes and working children in Tijuana, Mexico, Childhood, 13(3), 2006, pp 365–387.

3 O Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds: Gender, Welfare and Labour in the Developing World, London: Routledge, 1994; V Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994; A James & A Prout (eds), Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, London: Falmer Press, 1997; L Bass, Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004; N Ansell, Children, Youth and Development, London: Routledge, 2005; Ennew et al, ‘Defining child labour as if human rights really matter’; and M Bourdillion, ‘Children and work: a review of current literature and debates’, Development and Change, 37(6), 2006, pp 1201–1226.

4 See Bass, Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa; Ansell, Children, Youth and Development; A Kielland & M Tovo, Children at Work: Child Labour Practices in Africa, London: Lynne Rienner, 2006; Weston, Child Labour and Human Rights; B Grier, Invisible Hands: Child Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2006; R Panelli, S Punch & E Robson (eds), Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth: Young Rural Lives, London: Routledge, 2007; and S Aitken, R Lund & AT Kjørholt, ‘Why children? Why now?’, Children's Geographies, 5(1–2), 2007, pp 3–14.

5 E Mendelievich ‘Introductory analysis’, in Mendelievich (ed), Children at Work, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1979, p 55.

6 See International Labour Organisation, Report of the Director-General 1983, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1983.

7 See S Bessell, ‘The politics of child labour in Indonesia: global trends and domestic policy’, Pacific Affairs, 72(3), 1999, pp 353–371.

8 James & Prout, Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood, p 4.

9 H Hendrick, ‘Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood: an interpretative survey, 1800 to the present’, in James & Prout, Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood.

10 S Stephens (ed), Children and the Politics of Culture, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995, p 8.

11 J Boyden, ‘Childhood and policy makers: a comparative perspective on the globalization of childhood’, in James & Prout, Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood.

12 Ibid, p 200.

13 See Bessell, ‘The politics of child labour in Indonesia’.

14 UNICEF, The State of the World's Children 1997, Oxford: UNICEF/Oxford University Press, 1997, p 15.

15 UNICEF, The State of the World's Children 2005: Childhood under Threat, Oxford: UNICEF/Oxford University Press, 2004, p 3, emphasis added.

16 C Panter-Brick & MT Smith (eds), Abandoned Children, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p 4.

17 G Valentine & J McKenndrick, ‘Children's outdoor play: exploring parental concerns about children's safety and the changing nature of childhood’, Geoforum, 28 (2), 1996, p 220.

18 J Ennew & B Milne, The Next Generation: Lives of Third World Children, London: Zed Books, 1989, p 8.

19 See V Zelizer, ‘The priceless child revisited’, in J Qvortrup (ed), Studies in Modern Childhood: Society, Agency, Culture, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005; and B Thorne, ‘Pick-up time at Oadkle Elementary School: work and family from the vantage points of children’, in R Hertz & N L Marshall (eds), Working Families: The Transformation of the American Home, Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.

20 Boyden, ‘Childhood and policy makers’, p 200.

21 Bessell, ‘The politics of child labour in Indonesia’.

22 M Haider, ‘Recognising complexity, embracing diversity: working children in Bangladesh’, South Asia Research, 28(1), 2008, p 50.

23 Ennew et al, ‘Defining child labour as if human rights really matter’, p 28.

24 Ibid, p 28.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 A Kifle, Ethiopia—Child Domestic Workers in Addis Ababa: A Rapid Assessment, Geneva: ILO–IPEC, 2002.

28 B White, ‘‘Children, work and “child labour”’, Development and Change, 25(4), 1994, p 873.

29 S Punch, ‘Childhood in the majority South: miniature adults or tribal children?’, Sociology, 37(2), 2003, pp 277–278; and Bourdillion, ‘Children and work’, p 1202.

30 E Burman, ‘The abnormal distribution of development: policies for southern women and children’, Gender, Place and Culture, 2(1), 1995, pp 21–36; Panter-Brick & Smith, Abandoned Children; and J Boyden & D Levison, ‘Children as economic and social actors in the development process’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Working Chapter 2000, Stockholm: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000.

31 N Burra, Born to Work: Child Labour in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p 245, emphasis in the original.

32 Ibid, p 256.

33 Ibid, p 245.

34 Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds.

35 Ennew et al, ‘Defining child labour as if human rights really matter’, p 29.

36 O Nieuwenhuys, ‘Global childhood and the politics of contempt’, Alternatives, 23, 1998, pp 267–289; and Ennew et al, ‘Defining child labour as if human rights really matter’.

37 There is no similar regional treaty or declaration in Asia, although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been highly influential there, as elsewhere.

38 Nieuwenhuys, ‘Global childhood and the politics of contempt’; and Ennew et al, ‘Defining child labour as if human rights really matter’.

39 See M Woodhead, Children's Perspectives on their Working Lives: A Participatory Study in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden, 1998.

40 M Woodhead, ‘The value of work and school: a study of working children's perspectives’, in K Lieten & B White (eds), Child Labour: Policy Options, Amsterdam: Aksant, 2001; and Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds.

41 S Bessell, ‘Indonesian children's views and experiences of work and poverty’, Social Policy and Society, 8(4), 2009, pp 527–540; and Bessell, ‘Strengthening Fiji's education system: a view from key stakeholders’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, 24(2), 2009, pp 58–70.

42 James & Prout, Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood; and A James, C Jenks & A Prout (eds), Theorizing Childhood, New York: Teachers College Press, 1998.

43 C Jenks, Childhood, London: Routledge, 1996.

44 Bourdillion, ‘Children and work’; and Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds.

45 Bourdillion, ‘Children and work’, p 1202.

46 Ali Mazrui is cited in Bass, Child Labour, p 16–36.

47 See also K Hyde, ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’, in E King & MA Hill (eds), Women's Education in Developing Countries: Barriers, Benefits and Policies, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

48 E Schildkrout, ‘Age and gender in Hausa society: socio-economic roles of children in urban Kano’, Childhood, 9 (3), 2002, pp 344–368; and E Robson, ‘Hidden child workers: young carers in Zimbabwe’, Antipode, 36(2), 2004, pp 227–248.

49 Bass, Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa.

50 T Abebe, ‘Ethiopian childhoods: a case study of the lives of orphans and working children’, doctoral thesis, Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology, 2008.

51 Grier, Invisible Hands.

52 M Lange, ‘The demand for labour within the household: child labour in Togo’, in S Bernard (ed), The Exploited Child, London: Zed Books, 2000, pp 268–277.

53 Grier, Invisible Hands.

54 RE Elson, Javanese Peasants and the Colonial Sugar Industry: Impact and Change in an East Java Residency, 1830–1940, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp 212–219.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Ennew et al, ‘Defining child labour as if human rights really matter’.

58 Bass, Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa; and Bessell, ‘Indonesian children's views and experiences of work and poverty’.

59 MF Amigo, ‘Small bodies, large contribution: children's work in the tobacco plantations of Lombok, Indonesia’, Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 11(1), pp 34–51.

60 M Bourdillion, Earning a Life: Working Children in Zimbabwe, Harare: Weaver Press, 2001; and Bessell, ‘Indonesian children's views and experiences of work and poverty’.

61 N Ansell, ‘Secondary education reform in Lesotho and Zimbabwe and the needs of rural girls: pronouncements, policy and practice’, Comparative Education, 38(1), 2002, pp 91–112; and Ansell, ‘Secondary schooling and rural youth transitions in Lesotho and Zimbabwe’, Youth Society, 36, 2004, pp 83–202.

62 Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds.

63 C Katz, ‘Children and the environment: work, play and learning in rural Sudan’, Children's Environments Quarterly, 3(4), 1986, pp 43–51; Katz, ‘Sow what you know: the struggle for social reproduction in rural Sudan’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81, 1991, pp 488–514; KA Porter, ‘The agency of children: work and social change in the south Pare Mountains, Tanzania’, Anthropology of Work Review, 16(1–2), 1996, pp 8–19; Schildkrout, ‘Age and gender in Hausa society’; Ansell, ‘Secondary education reform in Lesotho and Zimbabwe’; and Ansell, ‘Secondary schooling and rural youth transitions in Lesotho and Zimbabwe’.

64 Woodhead, Children's Perspectives on their Working Lives; and Bourdillion, ‘Children and work’.

65 Katz, ‘Sow what you know’; Schildkrout, ‘Age and gender in Hausa society’; and Invernizzi, ‘Street-working children and adolescents in Lima’.

66 Abebe, ‘Ethiopian childhoods’.

67 Woodhead, Children's Perspectives on their Working Lives, pp 59–60; J Boyden, B Ling & W Myers, What Works for Working Children, Stockholm: Radda Barnen, 1998; and N Kabeer, G Nambissan & R Subrahmanian (eds), Child Labour and the Right to Education in South Asia, London: Sage, 2003.

68 Cited in J Ennew, Learning or Labouring? A Compilation of Key Texts on Child Work and Basic Education, Florence: International Child Development Centre, 1995, p 5.

69 Rwezaura, quoted in Ansell, Children, Youth and Development.

70 Bass, Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa.

71 S Punch, ‘Youth transitions and interdependent adult–child relations in rural Bolivia’, Journal of Rural Studies, 18(2), 2002, pp 123–133.

72 Bessell, ‘Indonesian children's views and experiences of work and poverty’.

73 Punch, ‘Childhood in the majority South’; and Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds.

74 Porter, ‘The agency of children’; Ansell, Children, Youth and Development; E Robson & N Ansell, ‘Young carers in southern Africa: exploring stories from Zimbabwean secondary school students’, in SL Holloway & G Valentine (eds), Children's Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning, London: Routledge, 2000; Robson, ‘Hidden child workers’; C Katz, Growing up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children's Everyday Lives, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004; Aitken et al, ‘Why children? Why now?’; and Panelli et al, Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth.

75 Bass, Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa; and R Lund, ‘At the interface of development studies and child research: rethinking the participating child’, Children's Geographies, 5(1–2), 2007, pp 131–148.

76 These include, first, ‘stabilisation policies’, designed to make certain macroeconomic changes as preconditions for rescheduling of the huge debts which many countries had run up; and, second, ‘structural adjustment policies’, meant to remove ‘distortions’ in the economy in order to facilitate the functioning of the market and foster ‘economic recovery’. Boyden & Levison, ‘Children as economic and social actors in the development process’.

77 Katz, Growing up Global; and A Honwana, & F de Boeck (eds), Makers and Breakers: Children and Youth in Post Colonial Africa, Oxford: James Currey, 2005.

78 Jennings, cited in J Boyden & D Levison, ‘Children as economic and social actors in the development process', Working paper, Stockholm: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000, p 16.

79 Aitken et al, ‘Reproducing life and labour’.

80 Robson, ‘Hidden child workers’, p 228.

81 Katz, Growing up Global.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid, p 250.

84 See also Katz, ‘Sow what you know’; and Katz, ‘Textures of global change: eroding ecologies of childhood in New York and Sudan’, Childhood, 2(1–2), 1994, pp 103–110.

85 C Jeffrey, ‘Fixing futures: educated unemployment through a north Indian lens’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51, 2009, pp 182–211.

86 T Abebe, ‘Changing livelihoods, changing childhoods: patterns of children's work in rural southern Ethiopia’, Children's Geographies, 5(1–2), 2007, pp 77–93. See also T Abebe & AT Kjørholt, ‘Social actors and victims of exploitation: working children in the cash economy of Ethiopia's south’, Childhood, 16(2), 2009, pp 175–194.

87 T Langevang, ‘‘We are managing!'' ‘Uncertain paths to respectable adulthoods in Accra, Ghana', Geoforum 39, 2008, pp 2039–2047.

88 Jeffrey, ‘Fixing futures’.

89 Ibid, p 182.

90 Robson, ‘Hidden child workers’, p 227.

91 Notable exceptions are P Reynolds, Dance Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambezi Valley, London: Zed Books, 1991; Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds; and T Blanchet, Lost Innocence, Stolen Childhoods, Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1996.

92 H Montgomery, Small Strangers: A Cross Cultural Introduction to Childhood, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.

93 Ibid.

94 Kifle, Ethiopia.

95 M Jacquemin, ‘Children's domestic work in Abidjan, Côte D'Ivoire’, Childhood, 11(3), 2004, pp 383–397.

96 Robson, ‘Hidden child workers’.

97 Bessell, ‘Indonesian children's views and experiences of work and poverty’.

98 Ennew, Learning or Labouring?, p 202.

99 C Moser, Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training, New York: Routledge, 1993; and Bass, Child Labour in Sub-Saharan Africa.

100 C Bradley, ‘Women's power, children's labour’, Cross-Cultural Research, 27(1–2), 1993, pp 70–96.

101 M Hollos, ‘The cultural construction of childhood: changing conceptions among the Pare of northern Tanzania’, Childhood, 9, 2002, pp 167–189; Porter, ‘The agency of children’; and Schildkrout, ‘Age and gender in Hausa society’.

102 B Grier, ‘Invisible hands: the historical economy of child labour in colonial Zimbabwe, 1890–1930’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 20(1), 1994, pp 27–52; and Lange, ‘The demand for labour within the household’.

103 J Hamer & I Hamer, ‘Impacts of a cash economy on complementary gender relations among the Sadama of Ethiopia’, Anthropological Quarterly, 67(4), 1994, pp 187–202.

104 Abebe, ‘Changing livelihoods, changing childhoods’.

105 Abebe & Kjørholt, ‘Social actors and victims of exploitation’.

106 Abebe, ‘Changing livelihoods, changing childhoods’; and Abebe, ‘Ethiopian childhoods’.

107 These activities are identified as among the worst forms of child labour in Article 3 of ILO Convention 182 on the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour of 1999.

108 See Bessell, ‘The politics of child labour in Indonesia’.

109 See, for example, B Tekola, Poverty and Social Context of Sex Work in Addis Abeba: An Anthropological Perspective, Forum for Social Studies, Special Monograph Series 2, Addis Ababa, 2005; J Hoot, S Taddesse & R Abdella, ‘Voices seldom heard’, Journal of Children and Poverty, 12(2), 2006, pp 129–139; and L van Blerk, ‘Poverty, migration and sex work: youth transitions in Ethiopia’, Area, 40(2), 2008, pp 245–253.

110 See, for example, T Abebe, ‘Shik'alla: the survival strategies of Ethiopian child beggars’, in S Ege, H. Aspen, B Teferra & S Bekele (eds), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Ethiopian Studies, Harrassowitz Verlag: Wiesbaden, 2009, pp 1033–1047.

111 See, for example, S Frankland, ‘No money, no life: surviving on the streets of Kampala’, in J Staples (ed), Livelihoods at the Margins: Surviving the City, Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007.

112 See H Montgomery, Modern Babylon? Prostituting Children in Thailand, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001; and R Setyowati, A Wahyunadi, E Suhanda, Susiladiharti, I Kartika, N Diryat & E Smith, Anak yang Dilacurkan di Surakarta dan Indramayu, Jakarta: UNICEF, 2004.

113 Van Blerk, ‘Poverty, migration and sex work’; and Staples, Livelihoods at the Margins.

114 J Boyden, ‘Risk and capability in the context of adversity: children's contributions to household livelihoods in Ethiopia’, Children, Youth and Environments, 19(2), 2009, pp 111–137.

115 Punch, ‘Childhood in the majority South’; and Langvang, ‘‘We are managing!''.

116 See Montgomery, Modern Babylon?.

117 See S Bessell, ‘Influencing international child labour policy: the potential and limits of children-centred research’, Children and Youth Services Review, forthcoming, 2010.

118 Bourdillion, ‘Children and work’.

119 Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds.

120 O Nieuwenhuys, ‘The wealth of children: reconsidering the child labour debate’, in Qvortrup, Studies in Modern Childhood, p 167.

121 T Abebe & A Aase, ‘Children, AIDS and the politics of orphan care in Ethiopia: the extended family revisited’, Social Science and Medicine, 64(10), 2007, pp 2058–2069.

122 Ibid; N Ansell & L van Blerk, ‘Children's migration as a household/family strategy: coping with AIDS in Malawi and Lesotho’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 30(3), 2004, pp 673–690; and T Abebe & M Skovdal, ‘Livelihoods, care and the familial relations of orphans in East Africa’, AIDS Care, 22, 2010, pp 1–7.

123 E Robson, ‘Invisible carers: young people in Zimbabwe's home-based health care’, Area, 32(1), 2000, pp 59–69; Robson & Ansell, ‘Young carers in southern Africa’; and M Skovdal, V Ogutu, C Aoro & C Campbell, ‘Young carers as social actors: coping strategies of children caring for ailing or ageing guardians in western Kenya’, Social Science and Medicine, 69(4), 2009, pp 587–595.

124 Robson, ‘Hidden child workers’.

125 Ansell & Blerk, ‘Children's migration as a household/family strategy’.

126 Abebe, ‘Ethiopian childhoods’; and Abebe & Skovdal, ‘Livelihoods, care and the familial relations of orphans in East Africa’.

127 Abebe, ‘Shik'allah’.

128 T Abebe, ‘Changing livelihoods, changing childhoods: patterns of children's work in rural southern Ethiopia', Children's Geographies, 5(12), 2007, pp 77–93; T Abebe, ‘Ethiopian childhoods: A case study of the lives of orphans and working children', doctoral thesis no. 48, Trondheim: NTNU; T Abebe, ‘Beyond the ‘‘Orphan burden'': understanding care for and by AIDS-affected children in Africa', Geography Compass, 4/5, 2010, pp 460–474; T Abebe and A Aase, ‘Children, AIDS and the politics of orphan care in Ethiopia: the extended family revisited', Social Science and Medicine, 64(10), 2007, pp 2058–2069; T Abebe and AT Kjørholt, ‘Social actors and victims of exploitation: working children in the cash economy of Ethiopia's south', Childhood, 16(2), 2009, pp 175–194; T Abebe and M Skovdal, ‘Livelihoods, care and the familial relations of orphans in East Africa', AIDS Care, 22, 2010, pp 1–7.

129 Abebe, ‘Changing livelihoods, changing childhoods’; Abebe ‘Ethiopian childhoods’; Abebe, ‘Shik'allah’; T Abebe, ‘Beyond the “orphan burden”: understanding care for and by AIDS-affected children in Africa’, Geography Compass, 4–5, 2010, pp 460–474; Bessell, ‘The politics of child labour in Indonesia’; 1998; S Bessell, ‘The politics of child labour in Indonesia: Global trends and domestic policy', Pacific Affairs, 72(3), 2009, pp 353–371; S Bessell, ‘Indonesian children's views and experiences of work and poverty’, Social Policy and Society, 8(4), 2009, pp 527–540; S Bessell, ‘Strengthening Fiji's Education System: a view from key stakeholders', Pacific Economic Bulletin, 2009, 24(2), pp 58–70; S Bessell, ‘Child labour in Indonesia’, in H Hindman (ed), The World of Child Labour: An Historical and Regional Survey, Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2009; and Bessell, ‘Influencing international child labour policy’.

130 Bessell, ‘Indonesian children's views and experiences of work and poverty’; E Burman, ‘Engendering development: some methodological perspectives on child labour’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(1), 2006, at www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/, accessed 2 April 2007; Nieuwenhuys, Children's Life Worlds; and Reynolds, Dance Civet Cat.