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Topic: |
Working Children’s Movements in South America.
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| Author: |
Marten van den Berge, IREWOC, Amsterdam (The Netherlands).
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Background document providing these lessons learned:
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Marten van den Berge, Working Children’s Movements in Peru, IREWOC, Amsterdam, 2007.
Marten van den Berge, Working Children’s Movements in Bolivia, IREWOC, Amsterdam, 2007
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| Other documents of interest: |
Sonja Zweegers (ed. by), Studying Child Labour. Policy implications of child-centred research, IREWOC, Amsterdam, 2005 |
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| Applied Participatory Approaches:
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Introduction
This article is based on the research undertaken by Marten van den Berge in 2007 on the working children’s movements in Peru and Bolivia , as a part of a larger study which also involved research in Senegal, India, Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda. The main objective was to analyse how working children in developing countries are organised, and how, by their participation in organised movements, they have effected changes in their working circumstances, in their self-esteem and in their prospects. Positive outcomes have been claimed by the child labour unions and by their protagonists. The research aimed to establish whether the lofty ideals are realised, and whether or not such unions contribute to condoning and legitimising child labour.
Scope and Methodology
The focus of study was on organisations that stated that they were organised exclusively for and by working children. In the case of Latin America these types of organisations are particularly widespread and are referred to as the protagonismo movement. The main research methods were anthropological participant observation and informal and semi-formal interviews, which were conducted based on a set of questionnaires. Some unconventional research methods were also used: asking the children to take photographs, and to film and draw their surroundings. These research methods were implemented to obtain additional information on how children value their living and working conditions.
The protagonismo movement
One defining characteristic of the organizations studied is their stand on child labour. In the debate on child labour in Latin-America, there are two strong opposing ideological positions: the regulacionistas and the abolicionistas. Regulacionistas’ theory holds that the focus in improving the situation for child labourers should be on ameliorating the working conditions of child labourers. The abolicionistas on the other side want to eliminate all forms of child labour altogether. The majority of the working children’s organisations can be stated to be regulacionistas: “We are against exploitations of work; but we are in favour of work with dignity and appropriate hours, so that we have time for education and leisure” (First International Meeting of Working Children’s Organisations in Kundapur, 1996).
A second defining characteristic of the working children’s organisations is their emphasis on the concept of participation. The working children’s organisations, especially those in Latin America , emphasise the right to participation. This emphasis on the right to participation is based on the fact that the working children’s organisations consider children to be social subjects and “independent individuals that can judge and design their lives themselves …” (Liebel 2000:3). Seeing as they have this capacity it is proposed that children should have access to the decision making processes of the organisations that concern them (Boyden et al 1998:45; Liebel 2001). To stimulate this participation the organisations want to create an environment in which children interact and which helps them to be conscious about what happens in their lives. They aspire to help the children to conceptually perceive their reality and to offer solutions, thereby being agents of change (protagonistas de cambio).
Despite a general agreement on this principle, the extent to which every organization is committed to participation varies significantly: in some cases it just means that children are expected to actively take part in the duties of the organization (the decision making power staying in the hands of adult members), whereas in other cases children are considered to be little adults, people able to make their own decisions and who have the right to fully participate in the meetings where all decisions about the organization are taken. However, the research showed that even in the latter cases a closer look reveals discrepancies between rethoric and practice, as the agenda is often set by the adult members, despite the role of mere “facilitators” or “supervisors” they claim to play within the assembly.
Impact of working children’s movements on members’ work and life conditions, self-esteem and prospects
As the author remarks, working children’s organization often do have a positive impact on their members’ life conditions, fulfilling affective needs (by providing spaces and occasions for social interaction), nutritional and educational support (by providing basic services such as shelter, food, school lessons and training, for free or very cheaply) and looking after other essential requirements of the deprived children and adolescents, such as protection and respect. However, it is noted, they fall short in providing a long term structural solution to child labour, especially in its worst form, and in putting in practice a real and effective participation and self-determination of the working children, let alone reaching them all or being able to adequately represent the category.
The greatest contribution of the organisations to the children is the provision of affection and safety. Friendships, solidarity, protection from domestic abuse, and protection from life on the streets, are invaluable assets. For parents and children alike, the additional informal education facilities, the employment services and the possibilities of travel are features which make the membership of the movement very attractive.
Child agency is said to be stimulated, and the classes that the members attend are rife with talk about agency, but it appears that children in the most vulnerable living and working situations, are the least likely to benefit. They often prefer to endure exploitation and abuse than to stand up for their rights and risk losing their necessary income.
The organised children did make some progress concerning self-esteem. Organised children often become more assertive and learn how to speak up for themselves. However, three observations were made concerning assertiveness. Firstly, some parents mentioned their children had become too assertive and had developed bad attitudes. Secondly, the timid children sometimes seemed to be overshadowed by the more outspoken ones, thus not getting the chance to develop themselves. Thirdly, although most children expressed many ideas about improving the self-esteem of working children, they did not seem able to apply these ideas to their own individual living and working situations. In other words, children appeared to have been taught the rhetoric, but not the practical application.
The research has shown that for some children, participation in the children’s organisations has been beneficial for their prospects. However, such organisations don’t have the instruments to accurately monitor their successes or failures. For implementing successful policy in any field, structural monitoring and evaluations seem to be a first important step.
Participation and representation within working children’s movements: rhetoric and practice
Although the term “working children” suggests homogeneity, it in fact refers to a very diverse group. They carry out different types of activities, work for varying number of hours, work under diverse conditions and vary in characteristics such as gender, age and origin.
Several institutional mechanisms are at work within the working children’s organizations that cause a bias in the characteristics of the children who actually become members. Firstly, the movements and their services are usually based in the cities. Secondly, the ways in which children are recruited lead to many members being children working on urban streets, and fewer children who work in more remote and hidden places, and who are perhaps more readily exposed to exploitation and abuse. Children who live in extreme poverty or who live in the most fragile families are least likely to benefit from the opportunities that the organisations offer, since they cannot demand their rights and risk losing their jobs. This need for an income also limits the time they have to invest in the organisations.
The fact that the working children's organizations mainly target children who work in the streets, results in girls being underrepresented within the organisation. Furthermore, as the members are primarily children aged 14 and older, younger children are also underrepresented by the organisation. Finally, since often the organizations are urban-based and reach out to children in the cities only, rural children are underrepresented. Thus, these organizations often represent only a specific segment of deprived children. Adolescent male urban workers compose the majority of their membership.
The organizations, in policy documents and in external assessments, are often said to be owned by the children themselves. However, it became clear that members and representatives function together with their adult collaborators. It would therefore be more appropriate to regard these organizations as movements of children, adolescents and adults, rather than of children alone. In order to fully understand how the organisations function one needs to examine how these parties relate to each other.
Officially the adult collaborators are said to be present to stimulate the children’s and adolescents’ protagonismo and to defend children’s and adolescents’ rights in general and specifically those of working children and adolescents. Accordingly, most collaborators state that they guide, but do not enforce the decisions. The working children and adolescents are supposedly at the core of the organisation, but adults are nevertheless present in every layer of the movement. The representatives are able to discuss freely and are stimulated to voice their opinions by the adult educators. During the meetings the children and adolescents take a central role in the discussions. However, the adults do indirectly influence the representatives. The information given to the children, on which they are to base their decisions during the meetings, is ideologically biased with a very specific regulacionista perspective on child labour. The process of stimulating self-made decisions is thus distorted, and other points of view can be left excluded from the discussion. In addition, more often than not, the agenda is significantly prepared in advance of the meetings by the adult staff, thus setting the parameters for the discussion and the probable decisions by the child/adolescent representatives.
Conclusions
The author concludes that the children’s movements, through the organisation of children and through the provision of child rights education, do offer a child-friendly environment, and in many cases they do provide working children with opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. However, there are major difficulties in including the neediest and most vulnerable child labourers. Additionally when they are included, they are the least likely to benefit from what the organizations have to offer them. The experiments with participation and representation, finally, are found to be much more problematic in practice than the official information briefings by the organisations would suggest.
