Rights and Wrongs of Children's Work

1. Raising Questions, Questioning the Answers

xix LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 8.1. A continuum of child work 161 Table 2.1. Starting age of work of children in different occupations in the Rural North Central Region of Vietnam 29 Table 2.2. Starting age of work of children in different occupations in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 30 Table 5.1. Psychosocial factors in child work 100 Table 6.1. Preferences by children aged 10–14 for school and work in four regions 112 Table 8.1. A framework for assessing psychosocial well-being among working children 173 Table 8.2. Potential benefits and harm in children’s work 175 xxi LIST OF ACRONYMS AMWCY African Movement of Working Children and Youth BGMEA Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association CCT Conditional cash transfer CDW Child domestic worker CWC Concerned for Working Children EFA Education for All EACID Egyptian Association for Community Initiatives and Development GDP Gross Domestic Product ILO International Labour Organisation IPEC International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour MANTHOC Movimiento de Adolescentes y Niños Trabajadores Hijos de Obreros Cristianos MFI Micro-finance institutions MOU Memorandum of Understanding (signed by UNICEF, ILO, and BGMEA) NGO Nongovernment organization PPIC-W Promoting and Protecting the Interests of Children Who Work PROGRESA Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación UN United Nations UNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund Rights and Wrongs of Children’s Work In Europe and North America it is widely assumed that factory work is bad for children, a clear case of harmful “child labor.” In this chapter we introduce an example of working children in Morocco which disturbs such common assumptions and attitudes about child work. This example leads to reflection and questions on how children’s interests relate to adult interests, on the way we understand childhood, on children’s rights, and on the kinds of information needed to understand children’s work. “When I was fired, I cried for two weeks”: How Intervention Went Wrong in Morocco’s Garment Industry Toward the end of 1995, a team from British Granada TV’s World in Action investigated the labeling of garments made in the Sicome factory in Méknès, Morocco, and found that many girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen were working in the factory.1 Representatives from Marks and Spencer, the well-known chain that retailed the garments in Britain, quickly visited the factory. At the end of 1995, many of the girls were summarily dismissed, allowing Marks and Spencer to announce in January 1996, two days before the Granada program was aired on British television, “Marks and Spencer has conducted a full investigation . . . and absolutely no evidence has been found to support this claim . . . no young person under the age of 15 years is currently employed there” (Zalami, et al., 1998, 32). Superficially, the matter appeared resolved; there were no longer any under-age girls working in the factory. The girls and their families, however, saw things differently. This is how Amal, a girl in Méknès, described her experience of finding a job at 1 1 Raising Questions, Questioning the Answers the age of thirteen in the Sicome clothing factory, and losing it the following year. I started to work at Sicome in 1994 and was fired in December 1995. My starting salary was 210 dirham ($21). My job consisted of trimming threads with scissors from finished garments. Sometimes I used to draw the lines on fabrics. . . . We used to begin work at 7.30 A.M. (the company bus picked us up from the neighborhoods at 6.30 A.M. and brought us back in the evening). We had a lunch break from 1 to 2 P.M. and we worked very often until 8 P.M., but we were never paid for overtime. The working conditions were extremely tiresome and our supervisors used to insult us and tell us, “If you don’t like it, leave: there are plenty of other girls waiting at the gate to be hired for less money.” When the Europeans came to visit, one of the supervisors used to ask me and other young girls to hide. One day, as I was leaving at the end of the day, they called...