A central and implicit issue that shapes the present political and institutional consensus surrounding child labour is the notion of harm. Although efforts to address children’s work rest firmly on assumptions about what is harmful, no coherent theory of harm exists. In this paper, we critically explore ‘harm’ in the context of children’s work and...

Children’s engagement with work has been widely researched using a wide variety of methods. However, the extent to which such methods and their combination provides insight into forms of children’s harmful work (CHW) is not obvious. This paper reviews and assesses respective opportunities and challenges of the main methods that have been used to study...

This article outlines a tension that plays itself out in rural areas throughout Africa. On the one hand, it is recognised that children throughout the world engage in economic activity, and this is particularly so in rural areas. On the other hand, is the policy, corporate and NGO focus on the elimination of child labour...

The development community wants to help child workers during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, but unless it rethinks its programming it could cause harm itself. Roy Maconachie, Sam Okyere, Neil Howard write for OpenDemocracy.

Hundreds of millions of pounds are being invested by governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and international agencies in support of the development and roll-out of policies and project interventions to end ‘child labour’. Undoubtedly, this points to an established political and institutional consensus, reflected in the fanfare around today’s World Day Against Child Labour. Yet, the...

Of the 736 million people living in extreme poverty worldwide, about 80 per cent live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for survival. Many of these are smallholder farmers who receive a relatively small income for the crops they produce and market. Others are farm labourers who struggle to make ends meet due to...

This paper steps back from dominant discourses around child labour, and examines how a reframing of children’s involvement in African agriculture, from child labour to children’s work, might enhance understanding of the forms, prevalence, drivers, and dynamics of their involvement, and particularly in work that is harmful. Our aim is to open space for new...

Much attention is being given to how best to resurrect economic activity as the COVID-19 crisis subsides. The upheaval caused by the pandemic and the serious threat of climate change are drawing attention to new approaches to planning, economics and sustainability. With attention focusing on local and global issues, the question is at which scale...