Title: Children at work in Southern Ethiopia: Economic and Social Contributions of working children in Dilla town
Abstract: In Ethiopia child work is an integral part of child development and socialization. Children, who constitute the majority of the population, have always been part of the economic life of the Ethiopian society. Although the importance of the work of children is widely recognized, the scanty literature and statistical reports documented children’s work too exclusively from a narrow child labor orientation thus eliminating some forms of work and completely missing many of the most important child growth and development questions. Child work is often categorically condemned as morally unacceptable, without any real attempts to understand the working children, their experiences and hopes and their ways of living and acting. The study aimed at exploring and analyzing the role and contribution of working children to the survival and welfare of their families and themselves. It tried to present evidence and argues that the reality of childhood in Ethiopia has an enormous economic and social significance. Dilla, which is located 365 km south of the federal capital Addis Ababa, has been selected because of its commercial importance as coffee collection centre and hub of the local (Gedeo) administration in the region with wide visibility of working children. The data for the study has been collected from a total of 117 children during the summer vacation of 2006. It employed a multiplicity of methods including questionnaire surveys (from 117 child informants), interviews (with 16 children), focus groups (4 groups), participant observations and narrative stories of child workers. Child informants were aged 7 to 17 years. Gender and ethnic diversity were sought and the study includes the perspectives of a number of children from varying ethnic groups and regions. Few adult informants including children’s rights activists, parents and teachers were interviewed in order to gain the views of key-informants and provide a comparative and complementary perspective to the children’s views. Few case stories were presented to provide insight into the every day life of working children, and to contextually characterize their agency while conceiving them as structural features of the society in which they are a part. Gidden’s structuration theory and the discourses of the “minority group child” and the “tribal child” approaches suggested by James et.al (1998) were employed as theoretical frameworks to address the research problem. All in all, children and childhood in the context of the study constitute work, play, and education. Children, as an integral part of society participate actively in the socio-economic life of their households and communities. Necessary life skills, knowledge and attitudes are imparted to the young generation not only through formal schooling but more importantly through participation in economic and social life and through the examples of seniors. Most working children represented lineage continuity and the material survival of families and the community at large. They often describe their work as economically empowering and as a vehicle for fostering responsibility. They see in their work not merely a burden or a necessity, but also a chance to learn things that school does not offer them. That children are neither excluded from adult society, nor inhabit a cultural universe separate from adult influences indicates it is imperative to conceptualize the majority of children in Ethiopia as economic and social agents within the household and society. The study further provides evidence for the relevance of conceptualizing children’s experience in accordance with Gidden’s structuration theory. This study provides evidence that the phase of life that we refer to as childhood is not only regarded as a period of preparation for adult life, but that it already involves important tasks for the reproduction and development of society. The work of children, which occurs in a variety of forms, draws our attention to the fact that the view of child labor dominant within the international agencies is extremely restricted. It shows that child work cannot only be regarded as “exploitation or deprivation” of childhood, but can be of positive significance for the children’s societal recognition, participation and personality development. Following a brief presentation of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of the study and discussion of the findings, the paper considers available policy and specific recommendations for interventions and further studies.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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