For the most part the independent migration1 of children tends to be presented in the policy literature as pathological, since it is often assumed to be the outcome of disastrous situations (such as war or famine) that lead to the breakdown of family relations, or result in the increasing vulnerability of children to economic exploitation, dangerous working conditions or abuse. However, data from ten months of fieldwork carried out during 2000-2001 in the village of Tempane Natinga in the north-east of Ghana suggested an alternative reality, where children were both choosing to migrate and were frequently positive about their experiences. The reasons they gave were that this often afforded them the opportunity to develop important relationships or skills, and/or to earn an income that allowed them to buy the things necessary for their progression into adulthood or to pay for education. The research was not focussed on child migration and so I did not systematically interview returning migrant children or children who had moved into the village, although I did include interviews with some children in both categories. An additional period of fieldwork, funded by the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, was carried out between May and July 2004, the purpose of which was specifically to explore children’s independent migration from the very north-eastern part of Ghana to the cocoa-growing areas of central and southern Ghana. A total of twenty parents (ten fathers and ten mothers) of independent child migrants were interviewed in Tempane Natinga, along with ten migrant children (five girls and five boys) who had returned from migration. Following this, a further thirty boys and thirty girls who were living as independent migrants were interviewed in eighteen different locations within a 100 mile radius of the capital of the Ashanti region, Kumasi, some 500 miles from the children’s home area.

Full details of the research methodology and the general findings can be found in Hashim (2005a). The current paper looks broadly at the positives and negatives of children’s experiences of migration. It focuses on the dangers and pitfalls that independent child migrants reported, along with the perceived benefits and opportunities. The paper goes on to assess the manner in which independent child migrants are positioned in social policy and legal discourse, in light of children’s own evaluations of their experiences, and argues that the two primary categories utilised in considering children’s independent movement–fostering and trafficking–are not