ahmed iftikhar - voices of the working children and their parents will anyone listen

1

About the author

Iftikhar Ahmed is a Development Economist having worked at the

International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva during three decades (1974-

2004) in the Employment Sector for many years having led the research

programme on technology, environment and employment with a focus on

gender issues. He also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International

Labour Review and Director of the ILO’s Bureau of Publications. His other

ILO assignments included that of the Action Research Coordinator at the

ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)

and Director of the ILO Office in Jakarta, Indonesia. Prior to joining the ILO,

he was a Post-Doctoral Associate at the Iowa State University of Science and

Technology, United States, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development

Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and Associate Professor of

Economics, Dhaka University, Bangladesh. He is the author of Technological

Change and Agrarian Structure: A study of Bangladesh (Geneva, ILO, 1981)

co-editor (with Bill H. Kinsey) of Farm Equipment Innovations in Eastern and

Central Southern Africa (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1984), editor of

Technology and Rural Women: Conceptual and Empirical Issues (London,

George Allen & Unwin, 1985), co-editor (with Vernon W. Ruttan) of

Generation and Diffusion of Agricultural Innovations: The Role of

Institutional Factors (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1988), editor of

Biotechnology: A Hope or a Threat? (London, Macmillan, 1992), and co-

editor (with Jacobus A. Doeleman) of Beyond Rio: The environmental Crisis

and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Third World (London, Macmillan, 1995

and New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

3

Dedication

Dedicated to the real child labour specialists, the 168 million working

children of the world and to the author’s three more-fortunate school-

going grandchildren, Amina, Zahra and Zain.

5

I f t i k h a r A h m e d

V O I C E S O F T H E W O R K I N G

C H I L D R E N

A N D T H E I R P A R E N T S :

W I L L A N Y O N E L I S T E N ?

With contributions by:

Muhammad Quamrul Hasan

and

Mohammad Mahbub Pervez

6

Copyright © Iftikhar Ahmed (2015)

The right of Iftikhar Ahmed to be identified as author of this work has

been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this

publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for

damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British

Library.

ISBN 978 1 78455 756 0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978 1 78455 758 4 (Hardback)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2015)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LB

Printed and bound in Great Britain

7

Voices of the working children and their parents:

Will any one listen?

Abstract

The voices of nearly three hundred and sixty thousand children (boys and

girls, 5-14 years of age) and over one hundred and sixty four thousand parents

(mothers and fathers) from both urban and rural areas of 25 countries spread

across three developing continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America

(including two countries from Eastern Europe) have been pooled together in

this book to analyse the children’s and their parents’ own experiences,

perceptions, priorities and aspirations on the multiple dimensions of the

phenomenon of child labour. Data was collected through national child labour

surveys carried out during 1999 and 2011.

Striking similarities have been noted between the children’s and parents’

mindsets across countries with diverse social, economic, cultural and political

contexts. According to both the children and the parents, children work for a

combination of reasons such as, in order to (a) supplement household income,

(b) assist household enterprise, (c) earn money to start children’s own

business or meet personal expenses and (d) gain work experience or acquire

skills or learn work ethics. Remarkably, no gender differences are noted in

their responses, although a rural/urban divide has been observed with respect

to the first reason.

Similarly, both parents and children are equally afraid that (a) household

living standard will decline and (b) household enterprise cannot operate fully

if the children stopped working, such a fear being more significant for rural

residents. In addition, parents from several countries fear children will not

acquire any work ethic or practical skills if they stopped working. However,

not all parents think alike; paradoxically, a good proportion of parents from a

set of countries from all three developing continents at the same time believe

that children stopping work does not affect the household welfare in any way.

A very high proportion of parents (more of the mothers from Latin America

as compared to those of Asia and Africa) and children (a larger proportion of

girls) aspire for the children to go to school full-time in the future. A

relatively higher proportion of children (more of boys and rural children)

aspire to work full-time now and in the future compared to the parents (more

of the fathers) who aspire for their children to do so. There are also some

parents and children from several countries whose aspirations for the children

include children’s combining part-time work with part-time education and

completion of education/training/ acquisition of skills before starting work.

8

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.

9

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 15 Notes on the author and contributors 16 Author’s preface 18 1 Introduction 20 Explosive recent growth in child labour literature 20 Focus of ongoing programmes 20 Children’s 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

Children’s perceptions 40 Solidarity in children’s views across countries 40 Boys and girls think alike 41 A rural/urban divide 42

Do parents’ mindsets conflict with children’s perceptions? 43 Comparison of parents and children’s 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

Children’s perceptions: Bolivia and Cambodia 59 Parents’ and children’s perceptions identical in Cambodia 60 Summing up 61

10

4 If only we had a choice 68 Caring parents: Honduras and the Philippines 68

Children’s aspirations now 68 Children’s unfulfilled dreams across countries 69 Girls’ higher preference for schooling 69 Rural/urban divide 70

Caring parents in Honduras and the Philippines 70 Parents’ aspirations for the children in the future 71

Caring parents’ aspirations for the future 71 The inter-continental gender divide: Latino mothers are more caring 71 Rural/urban divide in the parents’ aspirations for the future 72

Children’s wish list: A mixed blessing 72 Girls wiser 73 Rural/urban differences 73

Parents do care but children are ready to sacrifice 74 Concluding comments 75

Parents’ and children’s aspirations now 75 Parents’ and Children’s aspirations in the future 75

5 We want to go to school 89 Introduction 89 Parents’ arguments 89

Affordability and learning ability 89 Mothers disagree 90 Rural/urban divide 90

Children’s predicaments 91 Views across countries 91 Tradition-bound but smarter girls 92 Rural/urban divide: Mixed scenario 92

Parents’ and children’s views compared: Bolivia and the Philippines 93 Conclusions: Some myths about education – child labour links 94

Overall Conclusions 94 Does market work interfere with children’s school attendance? 95 Does lower educational achievement and attainment boost child labour? 96 Does combining school with work adversely affect the academic achievement of

children? 96 Is there a link between education provision and child labour? 96

6 Who owns the fruits of our labour? 106 Powerless children 106 Boys and girls equally vulnerable 106 Rural children less fortunate 106 Summing up 107 No significant gender differences were noted in the 9 countries 107 7 Conclusions and overview of findings 112 Looking through the prism 112 Overview of empirical findings 112

Priorities of the children and parents: Who benefits? 113 To supplement household income or to meet expenses 113 To assist household enterprise/family business 113 To earn money to start children’s own business 114 To gain work experience/learning skills or work ethics 114 Educational quality and distance from school 114

11

Stop child labour: A slogan or a commitment 115 Fall in living standards 115 A blow to household enterprise 115 Loss of work ethic 116 The good news: Household not affected 116

Unfulfilled dreams: Parents’ and children’s aspirations 116 Go to school full-time 116 Work full-time 117 Combining education with work 117 Complete Education before working 118

The truth about school attendance 118 Financial problems 118 Academic performance 119 Children engaged in economic activities 119 Is family an obstacle? 119 Discouraged by distance from school/quality of school 120

Who controls the purse? 120 Concluding comments and policy response 120

Household as the unit of analysis 120 Household economic priorities perpetuating child labour 121 A silver lining: The thirst for learning 121 Bridging the rural/urban divide 121 Social norms: A glass ceiling for the girls 121 Parents unjustly demonised 122 Risks of empowering children 122 Confidence or powerlessness 123 Knowledge is power 123 Cooperation or conflict 124

In a nut shell: the policy package 124 Relevance of existing policies and programmes: Carrot and Stick 126

Advocacy Campaigns 126 Income replacement programmes 127 Flexible school programmes 127 Reintegration projects 127 Conditional transfers 128 National legal prohibition of child labour 128 Trade sanctions and labour standards 129 Concluding remarks 130

Bibliography 141

12

List of Tables and illustration

Tables

Table

1.1

National Census and Statistical Bureaux conducting the child

labour surveys by Country, title, type and year of survey

35

Table

1.2

Number of parents and children (5-14 years of age) included

in the data set by Country, gender and rural/urban residence

37

Table

2.1

Parents’ views on why children work by country (percentage) 45

Table

2.2

Parents’ views on why children work by country and gender

(percentage)

46

Table

2.3

Parents’ views on why children work by country and region

(percentage)

48

Table

2.4

Children’s views on why they work by country (percentage) 49

Table

2.5

Children’s views on why they work by country and gender

(percentage)

50

Table

2.6

Children’s views on why they work by country and region

(percentage)

52

Table

2.7

Parents’ and children’s views on why they work by country

(percentage)

53

Table

2.8


and gender (percentage)

54

Table

2.9


and region (percentage)

56

Table

3.1

Parents’ views of the consequences on the household of their

children stopping work by country (percentage)

63

Table

3.2

Parents’ views on the consequences on the household of their

children stopping work by country and gender (percentage)

64

Table

3.3

Parents’ views on the consequences on the household of their

children stopping work by country and region (percentage)

65

Table

3.4

Children’s views of the consequences on the household of

their stopping work by gender and region: Cambodia 2001

(percentage)

66

Table

3.5

Parents’ and children’s views of the consequences on the

household of their stopping work by gender and region:

Cambodia 2001 (percentage)

67

Table

4.1

Parents’ aspirations for their children now by country, gender


77

Table

4.2

Children’s aspirations now by country (percentage) 78

Table

4.3

Children’s aspirations now by country and gender

(percentage)

79

Table Children’s aspirations now by country and region 80

13

4.4 (percentage)

Table

4.5

Aspirations now of parents and children by country, gender


81

Table

4.6

Parents’ aspirations for their children in the future by country

(percentage)

82

Table

4.7


and gender (percentage)

83

Table

4.8



84

Table

4.9

Children’s aspirations for their future by country (percentage) 85

Table

4.10

Children’s aspirations for their future by country and gender

(percentage)

86

Table

4.11

Children’s aspirations for their future by country and region

(percentage)

87

Table

4.12

Parents’ and children’s aspirations for the future by country

(percentage)

88

Table

5.1

Reasons given by parents for their children not attending

school by country (percentage)

98

Table

5.2

Reasons given by parents for their children not attending

school by country and gender (percentage)

99

Table 5.3 Reasons given by parents for their children not attending

school by country and region (percentage)

100

Table 5.4 Reasons given by children for their not attending school

by country (percentage)

101


by country and gender (percentage)

102


by country and region (percentage)

104

Table 5.7 Reasons given by parents and children for their not

attending school by Country, gender and region:

Philippines 2001 (percentage)

105

Table 6.1 Children’s report on recipients of their earnings by

country (percentage)

108


country and gender (percentage)

109


country and region (percentage)

111

Table.7.1 A matrix of parent’s and children’s mindsets on issues

relating to child labour across countries by gender and

rural/urban residence

131

Table A.1 Questions posed to the parents and children (5-17 years of

age) by country and dimension of child labour

138

Illustration

14

Figure 1.1 Number of actions reported under Convention Nos. 138

and 182 by type, 1999-2005, 2006-2009 and 2010-2013

36

15

Acknowledgements

The study took into account the valuable comments provided on the initial

draft by two anonymous referees from ILO’s 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

children’s 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.

16

Notes on the author and contributors

Iftikhar Ahmed is a Development Economist having worked at the

International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva during three decades (1974-

2004) in the Employment Sector for many years having led the research

programme on technology, environment and employment with a focus on

gender issues. He also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International

Labour Review and Director of the ILO’s Bureau of Publications. His other

ILO assignments included that of the Action Research Coordinator at the

ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)

and Director of the ILO Office in Jakarta, Indonesia. Prior to joining the ILO,

he was a Post-Doctoral Associate at the Iowa State University of Science and

Technology, United States, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development

Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and Associate Professor of

Economics, Dhaka University, Bangladesh. He is the author of Technological

Change and Agrarian Structure: A study of Bangladesh (Geneva, ILO, 1981)

co-editor (with Bill H. Kinsey) of Farm Equipment Innovations in Eastern and

Central Southern Africa (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1984), editor of

Technology and Rural Women: Conceptual and Empirical Issues (London,

George Allen & Unwin, 1985), co-editor (with Vernon W. Ruttan) of

Generation and Diffusion of Agricultural Innovations: The Role of

Institutional Factors (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1988), editor of

Biotechnology: A Hope or a Threat? (London, Macmillan, 1992), and co-

editor (with Jacobus A. Doeleman) of Beyond Rio: The environmental Crisis

and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Third World (London, Macmillan, 1995

and New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

Muhammad Quamrul Hasan worked as a Consultant Statistician with

UNESCO, UNDP and UNICEF Asia and Pacific Regional Office after having

served as a statistician/lecturer at the United Nations Statistical Institute for

Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) in Japan where he was involved in national

statistical capacity building. Before joining SIAP in 2004, he worked as the

Systems and Database Administrator at the Statistical Information and

Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC) of the International

Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) at the International

Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva for four years where he formulated

strategy and established the child labour statistical data archive. He was the

main author of the child labour survey data processing manual and

contributed to the manual on survey data collection published by the ILO. He

was a member of the ILO’s team on global estimation of child labour in 2002.

Prior to joining the ILO, he worked as senior systems analyst at the UK Data

Archive at the University of Essex and as an Associate Professor at the

University of Rajshahi (Bangladesh).

17

Mohammad Mahbub Pervez is a statistician/data management expert,

currently employed with the Bangladesh National Food Policy Capacity

Strengthening Programme being implemented by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Prior to that he developed the

Management Information System under Advancing Sustainable

Environmental Health (ASEH) Project of the international NGO, Water Aid

Bangladesh. He served as the Monitoring and Evaluation In-charge/Database

Specialist under the Food Security Enhancement Initiative of World Vision

Bangladesh during 2000-2006. He also made contributions to data

management for International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Bangladesh,

Practical Action (former ITDG) Bangladesh and Action Aid Bangladesh (for

one of its livelihood surveys).

18

Author’s 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 another’s voice and

discover their common, mutually-supportive mindsets and the absence of an

adversarial relationship. This sharing of knowledge within one’s 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).

19

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 world’s 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.

2 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.

20

1 Introduction

Explosive recent growth in child labour literature

An amazing recent flood of literature on child labour, based on empirical

work, can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, child labour is

increasingly viewed as a human rights issue. Secondly, globalization

(primarily international trade) increased awareness of the existence of child

labour that hit the conscience of consumers in rich countries of cheap products

imported from the Third World perpetuating child labour. Thirdly, a growing

concern about the impact on long-term economic growth of child labour by

affecting human capital development. Fourthly, greater recent availability of

national representative household survey data has opened up opportunities for

empirically investigating the complex multiple dimensions of child labour.

Therefore, it is little surprising that nearly 150 journal articles on child labour

were published within a span of the first 5 years of this century alone, when a

meagre 6 articles on this subject were published in the decade of the 1980’s

with substantial jump in the contribution to 65 articles in the subsequent

decade of the 1990s (Edmonds, 2008).

Focus of ongoing programmes

On the other hand, at the practical level, it is by now widely recognized that

child labour reduction policies and action programmes drawing on insights

obtained from the above research are not implemented in a vacuum. Based on

the results of the academic work, they are formulated by bureaucrats, planners

and development practitioners and implemented by government agencies and

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in different cultural, political and

socio--economic settings without taking into account the location-specific

social norms of the family or the perceptions of working children and the

mindsets of their parents where such information is available at the country-

level, for instance, those generated by the ILO’s National Child Labour

Surveys.

If our main goal is to assist working children and their parents to succeed in

their own efforts to eliminate child labour, then what can be more important

than listening to the voices of the children and their parents themselves.

Therefore, this cross-country study is based on the data generated by the ILO

through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

ahmed iftikhar - voices of the working children and their parents will anyone listen

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