Problematising the Dominant Child Rights Discourses: Why We Need a Nuanced Approach to Combat Child Labour
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.82.9764Keywords:
child labour, child rights, problematisation, education, work.Abstract
Three decades have now passed since the promulgation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989. Despite the almost universal ratification of the CRC, as well as the heightened global awareness of the prevalence of child labour, the phenomenon persists. Following the ratification of the CRC, the rights-based approach to combating child labour became the dominant theoretical perspective. By problematising the dominant child-rights framework, this paper contributes to the discourse on child labour by arguing for a more nuanced approach to addressing the phenomenon. The paper achieves this objective by underscoring the importance of understanding and engaging with the reasons why children work, the socio-economic contexts within which they work, and why policies designed to address child labour should address the structural barriers that directly and indirectly promote child labour.
References
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43. Tafere Y and Pankhurst A (2015) Children Combining School and Work in Ethiopian Communities. In: Pankhurst A, Bourdillon MFC and Crivello G (Eds) Children’s Work and Labour in East Africa: Social context and implications for policy. Ethiopia: Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa.
44. Ofosu-Kusi Y and Mizen P (2012) No Longer Willing to be Dependent: Young People Moving Beyond Learning. In: G Spittler and M Bourdillon (Eds) African Children at Work: Working and Learning in Growing Up for Life. Berlin: Lit Verlag, pp. 279-302.
45. Bachman SL (2000) A New Economics of Child Labor: Searching for Answers Behind the Headlines. Journal of International Affairs 53(2): 545–572.
46. Mulugeta E (2015). Children Sustaining Families: Insights into the Lives of Working Children in Addis Ababa. In: Pankhurst A, Bourdillon, MFC, and Crivello, G (Eds) Children’s Work and Labour in East Africa: Social context and implications for policy. Ethiopia: Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa.
47. Abebe T and Bessell S (2011) Dominant Discourses, Debates and Silences on Child Labour in Africa and Asia. Third World Quarterly 32(4): 765-786.
48. White B (1996) Globalization and the Child Labour Problem. Journal of International Development 8(6): 829-839.
2. International Labour Organization (2004) Child Labour: A Textbook for University Students. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
3. International Labour Organization (2017) Global estimates of child labour: Results and trends, 2012-2016. Available at: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_575499.pdf. (Accessed 16 July 2020).
4. International Labour Organization (2013a) World Report on Child Labour: Economic vulnerability, social protection and the fight against child labour. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
5. International Labour Organization (2013b) Marking progress against child labour: Global estimates and trends 2000-2012. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
6. International Labour Organization (2002) A Future without Child Labour. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
7. International Labour Organization (2011) Children in Hazardous Work. What We Know, What We Need to Do. Geneva: ILO.
8. United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (2001) Beyond Child Labour: Affirming Rights. New York: UNICEF.
9. Weiner M (1991) The Child and the State in India: Child Labour and Education Policy in Comparative Perspective. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
10. Blanchet T (1996) Lost Innocence, Stolen Childhoods. Dhaka: The University Press Limited.
11. Heady C (2003) The Effect of Child Labor on Learning Achievement. World Development 31(2): 385–398.
12. U.S Department of Labor (1994) By the Sweat and Toil of Children: The Use of Child Labor in American Imports. Washington: Department of Labor Report to Congress.
13. Ravallion M and Wodon Q (1999) Does Child Labor Displace Schooling? Evidence on Behavioral Responses to an Enrolment Subsidy. The Economic Journal 110(462): 158-175.
14. International Labour Organization (2010) Global Child Labour Developments: Measuring Trends from 2004 to 2008. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
15. Mapp SC (2010) Global Child Welfare and Well-Being. New York: Oxford University Press.
16. Boyden J (1997) Childhood and the Policymakers: A Comparative Perspective on the Globalisation of Childhood. In: A James and A Prout (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood. London: Falmer Press, pp. 190-229.
17. Huntington C (2006) Rights myopia in child welfare. UCLA Law Review 53, pp. 637-699. Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/177.
18. Reynaert D, Bouverne-de-Bie M and Vandevelde S (2009) A Review of Children’s Rights Literature Since the Adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Childhood 16(4): 518-534.
19. White B (2009) Social Science Views on Working Children. In: H. D. Hindman (ed) The World of Child Labour: A Historical and Survey. New York: M. E. Sharpe, pp. 10-17.
20. Twum-Danso Imoh A (2014) Realising Children’s Rights in Africa. In: A. Twum-Danso-Imoh and N Ansell (Eds) Children’s Lives in an Era of Children’s Rights. New York: Routledge, pp. 1-16.
21. Twum-Danso Imoh A (2008). A Cultural Bridge, Not an Imposition: Legitimising Children’s Rights in the Eyes of Local Communities. The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1(3): 391-413.
22. Bass LE (2004) Child labour in Sub-Saharan Africa. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
23. United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (1997) State of the World’s Children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
24. Bhalotra S (2003) Child Labour in Africa. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 4, OECD Publishing.
25. Kis-Katos K and Schulze GG (2005) Regulation of Child Labour. Economic Affairs 25(3): 24–30.
26. International Labour Organization (2006) Tackling Hazardous Child Labour in Agriculture: Guidance on Policy and Practice. Turin: International Labour Organisation.
27. International Labour Organization (2015) World Report on Child Labour: Paving the way to decent work for young people. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
28. Rahman MM, Khanam R and Absar NU (1999) Child labour in Bangladesh: A critical appraisal of Harkin’s Bill and the MOU-Type schooling program. Journal of Economic Issues 33(4): 985-1003.
29. Lieten GK (2009) Toward an integrative theory of child labour. In: H. Hindman (ed) The world of child labour: a historical and regional survey. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, pp. 26-32.
30. International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour [IPEC] (2011) Children in Hazardous Work: What we know, What We Need to Do. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
31. Food and Agriculture Organization (2015) Hazardous Child Labour: FAO’s Contribution to Protecting Children from Pesticide Exposure. Available at: http://www.fao.org/3/a-au046e.pdf (accessed 15 July 2020).
32. Grootaert C and Kanbur R (1995) Child Labor: A review. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series 1454.
33. Save the Children U.K. (2007) The Small Hands of Slavery: Modern day child slavery. Save the Children. Available at: https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/4682/pdf/4682.pdf. (Accessed 10 October 2020).
34. White B (1996) Globalisation and the Child Labour Problem. Journal of International Development 8(6): 829-839.
35. Basu K and Van PH (1998) The Economics of Child Labour. American Economic Review 88(3): 412-427.
36. Droz Y (2012) Conflicting Realities: The Kikuyu Childhood Ethos and the Ethic of the CRC. In: K Hanson and O Nieuwenhuys (eds) Reconceptualising Children’s Rights in International Development: Living Rights, Social Justice, Translations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115-132.
37. Bourdillon M (2006) Children and Work: A Review of Current Literature. Development and Change, 36(6): 1201-1226.
38. Tetteh P (2011) Child Domestic Labour in (Accra) Ghana: A Child and Gender Rights Issue? The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 19(2): 217-232.
39. Spittler G and Bourdillon M (2012) Introduction. In: G Spittler and M Bourdillon (Eds) African children at work: Working and learning in growing up for life. Berlin: Lit Verlag.
40. United Nations Population Fund (2019) The State of the World Population 2019. Available at: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/UNFPA_PUB_2019_EN_State_of_World_Population.pdf. (accessed on 26 May 2020).
41. Okyere S (2012) Re-Examining the Education-Child Labour Nexus: The Case of Child Miners at Kenyasi, Ghana. Childhoods Today 6(1): 1-20.
42. Kielland A and Tovo M (2006) Children at work: Child labor practices in Africa. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
43. Tafere Y and Pankhurst A (2015) Children Combining School and Work in Ethiopian Communities. In: Pankhurst A, Bourdillon MFC and Crivello G (Eds) Children’s Work and Labour in East Africa: Social context and implications for policy. Ethiopia: Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa.
44. Ofosu-Kusi Y and Mizen P (2012) No Longer Willing to be Dependent: Young People Moving Beyond Learning. In: G Spittler and M Bourdillon (Eds) African Children at Work: Working and Learning in Growing Up for Life. Berlin: Lit Verlag, pp. 279-302.
45. Bachman SL (2000) A New Economics of Child Labor: Searching for Answers Behind the Headlines. Journal of International Affairs 53(2): 545–572.
46. Mulugeta E (2015). Children Sustaining Families: Insights into the Lives of Working Children in Addis Ababa. In: Pankhurst A, Bourdillon, MFC, and Crivello, G (Eds) Children’s Work and Labour in East Africa: Social context and implications for policy. Ethiopia: Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa.
47. Abebe T and Bessell S (2011) Dominant Discourses, Debates and Silences on Child Labour in Africa and Asia. Third World Quarterly 32(4): 765-786.
48. White B (1996) Globalization and the Child Labour Problem. Journal of International Development 8(6): 829-839.
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Published
2021-02-28
How to Cite
Mohammed, A.-R., & Achanso, A. S. (2021). Problematising the Dominant Child Rights Discourses: Why We Need a Nuanced Approach to Combat Child Labour. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(2), 476–486. https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.82.9764
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