Children’s Work in African Agriculture

The Harmful and the Harmless

James Sumberg, Rachel Sabates-Wheeler

• Publisher: Bristol University Press
• Year: 2023
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781529226065
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Millions of children throughout Africa undertake many forms of farm and domestic work. Some of this work is for wages, some is on their family's own small plots and some is forced and/or harmful.

This book examines children's involvement in such work. It argues that framing all children's engagement in economic activity as 'child labour', with all the associated negative connotations, is problematic. This is particularly the case in Africa where many rural children must work to survive and where, the contributors argue, much of the work undertaken is not harmful.

The conceptual and case-based chapters reframe the debate about children's work and harm in rural Africa with the aim of shifting research, public discourse and policy so that they better serve the interest of rural children and their families.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
• List of Abbreviations
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Michael Bourdillon
• 1 Children’s Work in African Agriculture: An Introduction
• 2 Theorizing ‘Harm’ in Relation to Children’s Work
• 3 Understanding Children’s Harmful Work: The Methodological Landscape
• 4 Education and Work: Children’s Lives in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa
• 5 Disabled Children and Work
• 6 Value Chain Governance and Children’s Work in Agriculture
• 7 Blurred Definitions and Imprecise Indicators: Rethinking Social Assistance for Children’s Work
• 8 Children’s Work in Ghana: Policies and Politics
• 9 Children’s Work in Shallot Production on the Keta Peninsula, South-Eastern Ghana
• 10 Children’s Work in West African Cocoa Production: Drivers, Contestations and Critical Reflections
• 11 Children’s Harmful Work in Ghana’s Lake Volta Fishery: Beyond Discourses of Child Trafficking
• 12 Children’s Work in African Agriculture: Ways Forward
• Index