This book is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature that examines the place of work in the different contexts of children's lives, challenging the ethnocentricity of dominant policies on the elimination of child labour.
Child domestic work is often hidden and open to abuse, and so is widely condemned as one of the ‘worst forms of child labour’, demanding immediate eradication. When the work is examined, however, not so much against an idealized universal childhood, but rather in the context of children's situations in a very unequal world, the author shows that domestic work can offer hope and benefits to children in deprived circumstances as well as risks of exploitation and abuse. Such examination leads to a nuanced assessment of children's work, and of the kind of intervention that might benefit the children rather than worsen their already precarious lives.
Ina Gankam Tambo's study makes clear that child domestic workers are not a homogeneous group. Some children move voluntarily from home in an attempt to improve their lives, particularly to escape poverty at home and in search of better educational opportunities; for others, the arrangements are made by controlling adults, usually also with perceived benefits for children in mind. Some children move to live with kin; others move to homes of non-kin. Some are fostered for socialization purposes, including improved access to education; others are employed as household help. Some maintain a degree of agency that enables them to escape from exploitative situations; others, perhaps living in fear, see no chance of improving their lives. Sometimes placement in domestic work is arranged by intermediaries, some of whom are trying to arrange for improved opportunities for poor children from their home communities. Across all these differences, there are varying degrees of support and exploitation on the part of the households in which the children work.
Tambo's research delves not only into the perspectives of the children concerned, but also into those of parents, employers, intermediaries, and various support agencies. These reveal the complexity of motives, hopes and expectations behind the movement of children into domestic work in homes other than those of their natal nuclear families. The research also considers different responses of the children to their situation.
The diversity of situations in which children find themselves is not easily captured in the dominant discourse of child labour and child trafficking. The concept of employment does not adequately account for fostering for socialization. Taking up domestic work is sometimes a strategy to obtain rights for children who are deprived in their own homes. On the other hand, traditional ideas of socialization through fostering can become distorted by growing economic inequality. The degrees to which fostered children are included in or excluded from family activities vary. And children have difficulty in airing the problems they face in a culture in which children should be seen rather than heard; sometimes they find it hard to alert their parents to the difficulties they are facing. The study shows that many children involved in this kind of work need support and protection: the difficulty is to provide support that improves their situation rather than damaging further their opportunities.
Rather than assess the situations of the child workers against some ideal childhood, or against international standards, the author assesses their conditions against their own hopes and expectations, and against the twelve rights claimed by the African Movement of Working Children and Youth, which includes child domestic workers in its formulation. In a large number of cases, attention to the rights and needs of the child workers was found wanting. Particularly disappointing for many was inadequate time for school and study. A lack of respect and dignity for working children was common. Demands of work were sometimes excessive, as was punishment for real or perceived faults. Another area of concern was discrimination against child workers in relation to the children of the families in which they lived. Nevertheless, even among those who were treated badly, some believed that the benefits of their situation outweighed the difficulties, and so wished to endure hardship in the hope of a better future.
The author discusses different kinds of intervention that might improve the lives of these children. Legislation at the national level in accordance with international standards has little effect at the local level. Advocacy for children's rights can raise awareness among children, teachers and others, and so offers some protection. A focus on removing children from work leaves some children unprotected. Some promise is offered by child-centred interventions, which focus on the needs and perceptions of the children concerned.
This volume offers useful information and insight into an issue that is rightly receiving attention worldwide, but where the attention is often uninformed and consequently sometimes unhelpful.
It is not, however, an easy read. Better copyediting might have reduced grammatical and other mistakes and some repetition of the data presented. We meet the children of the study only about halfway through the book: the long trawl through the literature at the beginning could have been trimmed. References to various sociological theories are unlikely to help practitioners trying to understand the situation of the children they wish to support. Nevertheless, the information about the children in the central section of the book is likely to be useful to anyone trying to understand work in children's lives, and particularly the complex situation of child domestic workers.
