Are working children’s rights and child labour abolition complementary or opposing realms?

Introduction

Child labour has long commanded the attention of actors ranging from rights activists to consumer and labour organizations. The predominant argument in the ongoing debate is that child labour deprives children of their childhood and also negatively impacts on their welfare, their development and their dignity (Blanchet, 1996; Heady, 2003; ILO, 2002; Strakova and Vondra, 2008; Weiner, 1991). Consequently, many commentators have taken the view that the earlier child labour is eliminated, the better for society at large (Admassie, 2002; ILO, 2010, 2011; Ravallion and Wodon, 1999).

This is the dominant position on child labour. However, a still emerging body of literature has raised concerns about some of the strategies adopted towards the elimination of child labour and indeed whether outright abolition is feasible in some cases. As some argue, even the most basic survival for some child labourers is possible only by virtue of the work they perform (Levison, 2009; Myers, 2001; Nimbona and Lieten, 2007). Denying them access to work, regardless of what this is, may not necessarily improve their lives but may rather worsen it (Connolly and Ènnew, 1996). Evidence of this is a case in Bangladesh where child garment factory workers were laid off under the pretext that their work violated child labour conventions (Boyden, 1997). Far from going on to live work-free lives, the children’s hardships drove them into other occupations arguably worse than garment or carpet weaving.

Others have also argued that attempts to eliminate child labour must be sensitive to the diversity of childhood, as exemplified by James and Prout (1997). For instance, Bass (2004) and Punch (2003) have found that while children’s involvement in farming and weaving may be abhorrent in some dwellings, elsewhere, they are integral parts of a child’s proper upbringing and their participation is therefore not deviant. Therefore, child labour interventions must fit with the socio-cultural and political realities in which children live their lives, as Black (2003) and Miljeteig (2000) have concluded.

This article contributes to these debates using empirical evidence from ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an artisanal gold mining site in Ghana. The article does not aim to idealize children’s participation in work at the site. Rather, it simply draws attention to the constraints within which the children live, for which reason artisanal gold mining work has become an attractive prospect. The article’s central thrust is that any intervention seeking to end children’s participation at the site must be predicated on addressing the issues that inform their participation and not simply on preventing them from working at the site.

According to the ILO, child labour implies children’s work that contravenes ILO Convention Numbers 138 on the minimum age for admission to employment (Convention No. 138) and 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (Convention No. 182); whereas child work comprises those forms of work which do not contravene the above conventions. However, the author agrees with White (2009: 11) that this binary of ‘harmless ‘‘child work’’ and harmful ‘‘child labour’” is problematic. It ignores the social relations and other circumstances surrounding children’s work (O’Connell Davidson, 2005). Children’s work, like that of any other, should be seen as a continuum; ‘from intolerable to beneficial, compelled to freely chosen, inside and outside the home, paid and unpaid’ (Bourdillon et al., 2010: 23). Therefore, the terms child work or labour in this document refer to any sort of work done by a child. Where clarification is required, the name of the specific occupation will be used.

The article begins by discussing the motivation for the study and the methodology employed for the fieldwork. Next, it highlights the children’s participation in work at the site and the circumstances which informed the participation. The final section discusses the study’s finding in a more critical manner and concludes with suggestions on how the research participants’ engagement in artisanal gold mining work may be addressed.

1. Background and context

Basu has argued that child labour debates must be based on ‘careful analysis and research, and not just emotion or impulse’ (1999: 1084). This study therefore set out to explore the ways in which children were involved in artisanal gold mining work, the factors that informed their participation and the specificities surrounding their work. In line with Article 12(1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the study aimed to elicit the views of the research participants on their engagement in an occupation considered to be one of the worst forms of child labour (ILO, 2002). This was in order to understand the participants’ situation from their own viewpoints, as opposed to the explanations offered within the discourse on child labour.

A more detailed account of the research methodology, methods as well as the ethical and reflexive situations encountered is offered in a forthcoming paper by the author. Briefly however, the field work was undertaken at an artisanal gold mining site in Ghana as part of my ongoing doctorate programme. It was a short (12 weeks) ethnography combining unstructured and semi-structured interviews as well observation, to collect data. Operating with 18 as the upper age limit, a total of 57 children aged 14–17 generously offered to share their life experiences with the researcher. Other informants included artisanal miners, parents and guardians and community leaders. I lived in the town for the entire duration of the field work, walked to and from the site daily with the workers and also spent some nights on the site itself. Being embedded in the community in this manner allowed valuable insights into the setting and circumstances within which the children operated.

2. Factors that informed the children’s work at the artisanal mining site

As in many other African nations, work is an integral part of childhood in Ghana (Boas and Hauser, 2006; Whitehead and Hashim, 2005). Local rhetoric suggests that a good child is one who obeys their parents and works hard to support themselves and their families (Obeng, 1998). Hence, there exists a cultural predisposition and acceptance of children’s involvement in many forms of work. Delap (2001) and Grootaert (1998) have also suggested that poverty is the most important push factor for child labour. A combination of all these factors informed the children’s decisions to seek work at the site, although in some respects, poverty and cultural norms were merely catalysts.

The children’s primary reasons for being at the site included the wish to take care of themselves and help their families, but more importantly, to access education, healthcare, sustenance and other opportunities which had been beyond their reach prior to working there. As some noted:

I will not be doing this work if I did not want to go to school. My father and I used to work on people’s farms at first but one day he decided it will be good if I attended school instead. He cannot always afford to give me school money so I come here to earn some money which I save for school. (James, 14)

I want to be a nurse when I grow up because I can earn enough to take care of myself and my family. I know if I don’t go to school, I can never become a nurse and that is why I work here. Things are difficult but if I stop school I will only stay in the village doing nothing and waste my life so I will keep working. (Julie, 14)

As mentioned earlier, the wish to attain formal education accounted for the presence of many children at the site. Education in Ghana is free up until the end of Junior High School or around age 15. However, parents must still provide school uniforms, books and other supplies which can lead to substantial costs. For children from some impoverished families, education still remains inaccessible due to these costs and many drop out as a result. Others, like those who took part in this research, resort to work as a means of fully or partially funding their education. Artisanal gold mining work was more attractive to them because unlike other occupations which may be seen as safer or easier; ‘you can earn money quickly here and go back soon’ as Ali put it. School vacations offered a two-month window at the longest and working at the site was seen by many as the best way of saving enough money for the new three-month term.

The fact that hundreds of children worked at the site and attended school at the same time demands a rethink of the view that education alone can serve to combat child labour (Allais and Hageman, 2008; Guarcello et al., 2008). Evidently, the children who took part in this study require more support than simply being in school if they are to be able to stop working at the artisanal gold mining. Worse still for them, however, they potentially stand to lose out twice. First, because evidence suggests that they may be unable to complete schooling because of work (Boozer and Suri, 2001; Heady, 2003; Patrinos and Psacharopoulos, 1995), and second because all their hard work and hard earned monies will have been wasted as a result. Dabo’s account below shows the potential of such an eventuality:

If I did not have to work, I will have finished school long time ago. I am 16 years now and am the oldest boy in my class. I have had to quit school sometimes for a couple of months so I can save money and go back to continue. By that time, all my mates will have completed that level and I have to start again with a new batch of students. (Dabo, 16)

Besides education, others worked at the site because they were the breadwinners for their families and relatives:

I live alone with my grandmother who took care of me since I lost my parents as a child. She fell very ill last year and is now bedridden so I have been taking care of her since then. I work here and use the money I earn to provide for both of us.

Around 80 percent of the research participants contributed to their families’ incomes. Others, like Mussi (16), lived entirely on their own and for them working at the site represented the divide between sustenance and starvation.

I came here with some boys who had been before and I have been working at the site for a year now. I lived with my father’s brother but he drove me away because he said I was disrespectful. It was not easy at first but now I am okay. If I had not found my way here, I don’t think I will be alive today.

The children offered many reasons to explain their participation in work at the site. In all cases, they indicated that the decision to take up work at the site was not an imposition by parents or adults. Rather, they themselves had reached that conclusion as a way of improving their circumstances; working at the site was a voluntary choice by all. However, the extent to which their choice was ‘freely’ made is debatable. It was a decision made in the face of limited choices for some, and for others, no alternative choices at all.

3. Discussion and conclusion

Organizations such as UNICEF and, in particular, the ILO advocate that childhood should be free from labour (ILO, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2011; UNICEF, 1997, 2005). Indeed, as evident in Article 427 of the Treaty of Versailles, the total elimination of all forms of child labour was one of the principles on which the ILO was founded. It is to this end that the ILO has adopted Conventions 138 and 182. Some child labour forms may receive a more tempered approach towards their abolition. However, for others such as artisanal gold mining, a non-negotiable position is adopted by the ILO which argues that ‘there is no justification – poverty included – for children to work in this sector’ (ILO, 2005: 1).

It is this totalizing stance which was rejected by the children who participated in this research. They did not oppose it because they relished working at the site. Rather, it was because that approach threatened to narrow their already limited options even further. Also, it seemed to ignore the actual circumstances that informed their participation at the site. Their inability to attend school, stay at home, rest, play and essentially ‘enjoy’ being children was not because they worked at an artisanal gold mining site. Instead, they were not able to access the rights guaranteed them by the UNCRC and Ghana’s own 1998 Children’s Act because they had been let down by those tasked with providing them with these.

Ghana ratified ILO Convention 182 in 2000 and Convention 138 in 2011. It was also the first country to ratify the UNCRC in February 1990. However, many Ghanaian children are still unable to access some of the most vital rights guaranteed them by the UNCRC. The country lacks the relatively well resourced and robust child support systems that exist mostly in the developed world. Therefore when parents are unable to provide for their children, although the state has tasked itself with the responsibility of stepping in and assisting, it often fails to do so. With no one to turn to, children like those who assisted with this study must find their own ways of feeding themselves, sponsoring their education and accessing even some of the basic needs.

Owing to the above, while others see their removal from the hazards at the site to be of primary importance, the children’s own priorities lay with addressing the ‘hazards’ they faced due to poverty and resource constraints. For them, child labour had actually been the solution and not the problem (Grier, 2004). Therefore, it is problematic that calls for an immediate end to the children’s work at the site do not necessarily address the reasons why the children work there in the first place. There are good intentions behind such calls, but the paper agrees with the children that such calls have the potential to push them into further hardships rather than help them.

In cases where children have been put to work against their will and are being abused, beaten and given no option to leave that work, it is morally and credibly indefensible to question the call for their immediate or unconditional removal. However, in a context like that of this study, it is questionable as to whether the children require ‘rescuing’ or ‘removal’ as if they have been forced into work and have no option of coming out themselves. The findings of the study suggest that if they are offered accessible, viable and sustainable alternatives to working in artisanal gold mining, in all likelihood, the children will have no further need to work at the site.

It is against this backdrop that the paper suggests that child labour may be complementary to some working children’s rights and not opposite to them, as suggested by policy-makers and generally within the dominant discourse on the phenomenon (ILO, 2002, 2004).

The children’s situation also raises questions about the concept of child participation in general, and more specifically, the extent to which children are allowed to make decisions about their own lives. Much emphasis is now placed on child participation, but contrary to Article 12(1) of the UNCRC, children’s voices are in many respects still not being listened to. As Stasiulis (2002) and Feeny and Boyden (2004) have argued, however, children’s rights should be derived from their participation (in this case, in the labour market) and not their exclusion. The views expressed by the children in this research have also been echoed by a growing number of working children’s associations. They argue that instead of being denied access to some forms of work, they should rather be afforded the right to seek any form of work if necessary (Miljeteig, 2000; White, 2009). The children’s viewpoint has thus far been largely ignored by children’s rights policy-makers.

To conclude, in seeking to assist child labourers, it must be recognized that many face two extreme situations: ‘extreme livelihood hazards’ from lack of resources and ‘extreme work hazards’ from the engagements they take up as a result. Currently, policy-makers and those working with child labourers place greater emphasis on eliminating the latter. However, the study argues that both situations must be given equal prominence. Unquestionably, the children faced hazards in their presence in artisanal gold mining work. However, denying them access without properly taking into account the deficits they will inevitably suffer may arguably not be in their best interests either. Therefore, any intervention seeking to end their work at the site must equally address the issues that informed their participation.