Dr Tatek Abebe

Associate Professor

Coordinator, Nordic Network of African Childhood and Youth Research

Norwegian Centre for Child Research

Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology

www.ntnu.edu

Presentation at East African Regional Symposium on Child Work/Child Labour, 20-21 March 2014

Perspectives on children’s work Exemplify the “infantilization” of social

reproduction Explore what the political economy perspective

might offer to contextualize children’s work

Historicize children’s work in wider social transformations that shape community livelihood trajectories

Explore children’s views on

interconnected issues of care, work and livelihood in contrasting geographical settings - Addis Ababa and Gedeo - situating these within ongoing debates on the social, cultural, economic, political contexts of child labour

Participatory approaches to explore what children do, where, with whom, how and what they think about it «My day»:

«My work»:

«Who matters»:

«Work and school»:

«Which work is best?»

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 9 Regions Southern Regional State; Gedeo Zone – high population density; cash economy (coffee, chat) employ ca. 15 million people, and key to national revenue.

coffee chat fruits enset

Imperial regime Ethiopia’s integration into the world economy

Socialist regime Farmers cooperatives Centralized market

Current ALID strategy sees commercial agriculture as expanding the livelihood options for the rural population, risk management and diversification strategy for peasants a way of generating employment for young people.

Rapid economic development can be achieved through expansion of export-oriented crops

Coffee and chat – Ethiopia’s ‘green gold’ – account for 70% of total GDP. Most of these are produced in S Ethiopia.

Global restructuring of coffee market Collapse of International Coffee Association 1989

Sturctural Adjustment Programs Increased land tax, withdrawal of subsidies, rising costs of

fertilizers etc. Import tariffs on processed goods that prevent coffee

producers from adding value New entrants into the market, that destablised prices Plummeting coffee prices = 60% loss in revenue in

2003 in Ethiopia (Oxfam 2004) Point of no return, enset takes 4 to 5 years for the

trunk and root to be processed as food

Disempowerment, coffee and chat took land away from enset, “women's crop”

Altered age- and gender-based divisions of labor Increased reproductive work burden, on girls Niche market facilitated exploitation of small scale

farmers by local money lenders, who also purchase products prior to harvest, at unfavorable prices.

Disruptions in education Despite expansion of primary schools, coffee producing

regions continue to have one of the highest levels of truancy and school drop out rates in Eth

Diminishing household resources for children

Harnessing the ‘agro-forestry’ system

Trade and off-farm activities

Apr-May

(planting)

June-Aug

(growing)

Sep-Dec

(harvesting)

Jan-Mar

(land

preparation)

subsistence farming involving food crops (e.g. maize, enset, potato, root crops) and cash crops (e.g. coffee, chat, sugar cane, fruits), and selling farm produce in market places

selective picking mature coffee beans from the tops of trees, washing and drying etc

off-farm, income generating activities in the rural informal economic sector, and nearby towns

Young care-giving activities

Examples

Domestic chores Cooking, cleaning, washing clothes and dishes, sweeping floor, fetching water, collecting and splitting fuel wood, plastering huts and repairing thatched roofs

Care work Caring for younger siblings, sick parents, relatives; preparing special food; helping them to turn in bed and walk Personal care involving bathing sick/weak family member; assisting to eat, dress and use the toilet Nursing of sick family members by administering drugs and applying creams on bedsores; communicating with doctors and health workers

Income generation activities

Sale of farm proceeds Informal labour for cash (farmhands, domestic help, retailing commodities in markets, portering, sewing services etc) Paid work in coffee picking and processing Portering, retail work, hawking etc Begging

Emotional and practical support

Emotional support and encouragement to those dying (Abebe and Skovdal, 2010 p. 572, AIDS Care)

The deepening and transference to children of the burden of daily and generational reproduction

Children involvement in marginal livelihoods – transgress moral and socio-legal boundaries – to buffer household poverty

Expanded duration, intensity and field of children’s work

Repositioning of children’s daily roles, e.g. within domestic spaces, in local markets and agricultural work

Periodic, regular, and substantial home-based care-giving work of children

How do the interplay between different and deeply unequal forms of power and exchange within the realm of economics disadvantages working children?

In what ways political and economic processes shape (and are reshaped by): - the lives that children live? - the “choices” children and their families confront? - the spaces of livelihood children must draw on, negotiate,

and navigate?

How the «intimate and global intertwine» Re-introduce social reproduction as an important but

missing aspect of debates areound development