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The challenges that sub-Saharan Africa has faced in the post-colonial period have come to characterise the way the region is perceived. These narratives are especially evident in the various ways children’s lives are discussed, leading to a particular focus on childhoods in difficult circumstances or at the margins. This has eclipsed the mundanities of everyday life for many children whose lives are not characterised by ‘lacks’. This article seeks to move beyond an overwhelming focus on childhoods defined by what they lack by illustrating the multitude of childhoods which exist in the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the meanings children involved in fishing and farming practices in two communities in Cape Coast, Ghana, give to their participation in work and school. Everyday work tasks are considered purposeful by the children, as they describe their own efforts as a reproduction of a traditional intergenerational order with strong moral connotations. More than anything, the moral dimension of participation is highlighted when children talk about how they earn their identity, respect, and competences through work. For their future, however, many children dream about other kinds of jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a critical overview of anti-child trafficking discourse and policy in Southern Benin. The article examines the major trends in interventions pioneered by the dominant institutional actors in the field, and looks at the discursive background against which they are formed. The article contrasts mainstream policy and discourse with the alternative narratives and policy suggestions pertaining at the level of the communities who find themselves targeted by the anti-trafficking establishment. It offers suggestions for the improvement of policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the experiences of working children aged between 9 and 14 years in a German city, and the meanings the children ascribe to their work. This qualitative study is based upon a broad concept of work, which includes both unpaid and paid work. As far as work is concerned, the most important thing for children is being able to act independently and find approval for their work. They prefer to receive adequate payment as a form of recognition, but money is not a necessary motive nor the only motive for working. Children's attitude towards their work differs according to a number of factors: whether it offers the opportunity to perform their skills; the concrete use it has for others, and how far that work is appreciated by adults in their social environment. Work is not regarded as being in competition with school, but is seen as an additional opportunity for children to gain new experiences and expand their scope of activities. Work experience can become an important element in children's participative autonomy. Thus it can potentially strengthen their social status and encourage girls and boys to play an active role in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tries to analyse the evolution over the past 40 years of children's domestic work and its representations in urban Côte d'Ivoire, and, particularly, how these practices evolved from family work linked to educational processes, into the kind of wage work that exists today. Listening to the children themselves, the aim is to find out how the petites bonnes (young maids) perceive their situation as workers, how they make it their own and how they see their future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research with young domestic workers in Dakar was carried out by ENDA in association with the ILO, UNICEF and the Senegalese government as part of a wider process of research and action undertaken to improve the situation of child and youth workers in a number of African cities. The approach emphasizes the importance of listening to individuals and groups before undertaking action. This article presents the results of data collected as well as the responses to these data in terms of research and action subsequently undertaken or planned. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article challenges the view that in the Third World universal schooling would provide, as is widely believed, an antidote against the widespread involvement of poor children in work. Analysing the everyday life of poor children in a coastal village, the author contends that for the children of the rural poor, expanding schooling, because it involves time to be free from work and new expenses for clothing and study material, has generally resulted in an increase in drudgery. To defray the costs of schooling, children have, by and large, had to continue to perform their customary work roles in the local economy. The combination of schooling and work has however also brought undeniable gains by providing the children of the poor with a space which seniority and gender relations, and the subordinate position of children therein, can be challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]