Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
sector, while girls are more likely to work in service and manufacturing
industries, including domestic work, commercial sex work, assisting
women in market trading and home-based activities such as the prepara-
tion of cooked food, home beer brewing, stitching, packing or other pro-
duction work (Bhat, 2010). The likelihood of children's involvement in
child labour and hazardous work increases with age. Young people aged
15-17 years involved in both child labour and hazardous work increased
by 20 per cent from 2004-2008, with twice as many boys of this age
involved in this work than girls (ILO, 2010b).
While the international focus on tackling child labour has been
broadly welcomed, many researchers and NGOs have emphasized how
children's work is interconnected with poverty and argued that interven-
tions to 'rescue' children from work are unlikely to address the structural
factors that draw children into child labour. Indeed, such efforts may
result in children working in more hazardous illicit occupations that put
them at greater risk. The type of work that children are involved in, the
hours they work, labour relations, and the setting, remuneration, degree
of hazard among other factors are key to assessing the extent to which
work can be regarded as harmful for children (Ansell, 2005).
In many societies globally, sociocultural norms and levels of poverty
mean that most children are expected to engage in paid and unpaid
work from an early age as part of the household economy. Such respon-
sibilities are usually valued as part of children's informal education and
socialization in the family and community. Children often engage in
both productive and social reproductive activities according to a gen-
dered division of labour and age hierarchies. Although gender relations
vary in different contexts, girls in many patriarchal cultures are
expected to undertake domestic chores located in and around the home,
such as fetching water and fuel, washing clothes, cooking, cleaning, car-
ing for younger siblings, sick or elderly relatives; while boys have
greater responsibilities for activities conducted outside the home, such
as running errands, herding livestock, working in the informal sector
(Nieuwenhuys, 1994). Older siblings often have greater responsibilities
than younger siblings, and the extent and range of tasks that children
are involved in usually increases with age, linked to perceptions of
young people's physical strength and competencies to perform particu-
lar tasks (Evans, 2010). The tasks performed by girls and boys tend to
be the low-status activities usually undertaken by women, such as
household chores, load bearing and subsistence agriculture, while girls
rarely do men's activities in any society (Bradley, 1993).
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