Defining Children’s Rights to Work and Care in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tensions and Challenges in Policy and Practice

Abstract

This chapter explores the spatialities of children’s rights through a focus on how children’s paid and unpaid work in sub-Saharan Africa intersects with wider debates about child labor, child domestic work, and young caregiving. Several tensions surround the universalist and individualistic nature of the rights discourse in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, and policymakers, practitioners, children, and community members have emphasized children’s responsibilities to their families and communities, as well as their rights. The limitations of ILO definitions of child labor and child domestic work and UNCRC concerns about “hazardous” and “harmful” work are highlighted through examining the situation of children providing unpaid domestic and care support to family members in the private space of their own or a relative’s home. Differing perspectives toward young caregiving have been adopted to date by policymakers and practitioners in East Africa, ranging from a child labor/child protection/abolitionist approach to a “young carer”/child-centered rights perspective. These differing perspectives influence the level and nature of support and resources that children involved in care work may be able to access. A contextual, multi-sectorial approach to young caregiving is needed that seeks to understand children’s, family members’, and community members’ perceptions of what constitutes inappropriate caring responsibilities within particular cultural contexts and how these should best be alleviated.