Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dedication
Dedicated to the real child labour specialists, the 168 million working
children of the world and to the authors three more-fortunate schoolgoing grandchildren, Amina, Zahra and Zain.
Iftikhar Ahmed
VOICES
AND
WILL
OF
THE WORKING
CHILDREN
THEIR PARENTS:
ANY ONE LISTEN?
Reasons advanced by parents and children for the latter not attending school
include cost of education (higher proportion of mothers and rural parents),
problems of learning achievement (lower proportion of girls but higher
proportion of rural children) and children being engaged in economic
activities (a higher proportion of girls engaged in household chores). A
negligible proportion of both parents and children stated that family does not
allow children to go to school. As regards education provision and child
labour links, contrary to most existing empirical evidence, a negligible
proportion of parents and children gave the quality of education or the
distance of schools (a more acute problem in rural areas) as a reason for
children not attending school or for their engaging in work.
As for the children engaged in wage work, vast majority of the children (more
of the girls and rural children) universally hand over their entire earnings to
their parents.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
15
Notes on the author and contributors
16
Authors preface
18
1 Introduction
20
Explosive recent growth in child labour literature
20
Focus of ongoing programmes
20
Childrens and their parents own perceptions: A major gap
21
Benefits of special child labour surveys
21
Demonising parents
22
Aims, objectives and scope of the study
23
Issues addressed
24
Methodology, sources of data and country coverage
24
Source of data
25
The child labour survey methodology and geographical coverage
25
Selection and number of respondents
26
Discrepancies in the number of respondents
27
Statistical analysis
28
Significance of the study in the current global socio-economic context
30
Explaining the puzzle: Declining child labour amidst growing unemployment
30
Vulnerable employment awaits working children
31
Design of the book
32
2 Why do our children work?
38
Opening remarks
38
Parents perceptions
38
Parents views across countries converge
38
Parents perceptions unaltered by gender
39
Do urban and rural environments influence parents views?
40
Childrens perceptions
40
Solidarity in childrens views across countries
40
Boys and girls think alike
41
A rural/urban divide
42
Do parents mindsets conflict with childrens perceptions?
43
Comparison of parents and childrens perception across countries covered by same
survey
43
Gender-differences prevail
44
Rural/urban divide exists
44
Main Conclusion
44
3 If children stop working
57
Introductory remarks
57
Parents perceptions
57
Parents views across countries
57
Gender differences
58
Rural/urban divide exists
58
Childrens perceptions: Bolivia and Cambodia
59
Parents and childrens perceptions identical in Cambodia
60
Summing up
61
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141
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50
79
12
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4.4
Table
4.5
Table
4.6
Table
4.7
Table
4.8
Table
4.9
Table
4.10
Table
4.11
Table
4.12
Table
5.1
Table
5.2
Table 5.3
Table 5.4
Table 5.5
Table 5.6
Table 5.7
Table 6.1
Table 6.2
Table 6.3
Table.7.1
Table A.1
(percentage)
Aspirations now of parents and children by country, gender
and region (percentage)
Parents aspirations for their children in the future by country
(percentage)
Parents aspirations for their children in the future by country
and gender (percentage)
Parents aspirations for their children in the future by country
and region (percentage)
Childrens aspirations for their future by country (percentage)
81
82
83
84
85
86
100
Illustration
13
87
88
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99
101
102
104
105
108
109
111
131
138
Figure 1.1
14
36
Acknowledgements
The study took into account the valuable comments provided on the initial
draft by two anonymous referees from ILOs International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and the helpful suggestions for
improving the text subsequently received from Marlous de Milliano of the
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, Italy which focuses on
childrens rights.
Without the enthusiasm and insistence of my friend Muhammad Muqtada and
without the support of my tennis partner and eminent economist, Guy
Standing and my mentor Ajit Bhalla, this book would never have been
published.
The author is grateful to Md. Kawsarul Alam Sarker who undertook the
tedious work of placing the entire manuscript on the word processor.
15
17
Authors preface
The author of this study was inspired by the loud and clear voices of the poor,
the non-unionized industrial workers and the insecure inhabitants of this
planet to similarly listen to the voices of the powerless working children and
their desperate parents from Third World countries.
Essentially, the study assembles and analyses the views, experiences priorities
and aspirations of 359,921 boys and girls and their parents (both mothers and
fathers) numbering 164,271 from 25 countries spread over all three
developing continents and Eastern Europe across diverse, social, cultural,
economic and political contexts through special child labour surveys
conducted by the national census and statistical bureaux of each country with
the technical support of the ILO.
The credibility and authenticity of information secured by direct interviews of
nearly 360,000 boys and girls and over 164,000 parents stands out in stark
contrast with the anecdotal accounts presented by children at international
conferences hand- picked by the organizers.
Therefore, the author would strongly urge policy makers and practitioners to
read this book to reflect on the results and respond to the voices raised by the
helpless working children and their caring parents world-wide.
Equally importantly, the author recommends the translation of the book into
the local vernaculars of the 25 countries covered by this study providing a
mechanism for the children and the parents to hear one anothers voice and
discover their common, mutually-supportive mindsets and the absence of an
adversarial relationship. This sharing of knowledge within ones own
household will certainly empower them to collectively fight their own battle
against child labour.
The author recognises that the data generated by this study will not in itself
end child labour, but he firmly believes that, at the very least, this book can
make progress towards the elimination of child labour possible by providing
empirical evidence to drive action, identify gaps in policies, influence
decision-makers, target investment and interventions to reach out to the most
vulnerable children and their families.
Narayan, Deepa; Petesch, Patti (eds.): Voices of the poor: From many lands (New York,
Oxford University Press, and Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2002); Anker, Richard "People's
Security Survey: An outline of methodology and concepts" in International Labour Review;
(Geneva, ILO) Vol. 141, No. 4, 2002; and Fredon, Richard B.; Rogers, Joel: What workers
want (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1999).
18
The book represents an effort to fully utilise the data set generated by the
child labour surveys.
This book could also be seen as a part of a recent trend of data-focused social
and economic analysis of major global issues such as inequality of wealth in
the worlds leading economies2.1
Finally, the age of internet communication has facilitated the incorporation of
inputs and the synthesis of contributions of the author and the two statistical
analysts spread over three corners of the world (Switzerland, Bangladesh and
the UK) into this multi-authored book.
See for instance, Piketty, Thomas: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge,
Mass., Harvard University Press, 2014). No other book on economics in recent
history received such a glowing initial reception as the Piketty book did world-wide.
19
Introduction