An integrated childhood perspective : Contextualising legal and non-legal approaches to tackle child labour in Malawi

Abstract

Abstract

Child labour continues to be a global problem affecting children and families across the globe. It is work performed by a child that is likely to interfere with their education or harm their health, physical, mental, moral, or social development. To address the problem, the international community agreed to adopt different legal frameworks on child labour. Malawi ratified these international human rights instruments and has even enacted domestic legislation to overcome the problem. Furthermore, initiatives that include the legal ban on child labour, access to education initiatives, poverty alleviation programmes, and direct interventions by governments and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on incentive-based schemes have been implemented to combat the problem. Despite these efforts, child labour is increasing, especially in the agricultural sector. In this study, I argue that there is a gap between the promise the legal framework gives children of addressing child labour and the reality of the problem. Thus, the existing legal framework on child labour fails to operate to cure child labour, mainly as a result of contextual barriers outside and within the law. At its core, the thesis argues that children in Malawi experience their childhood in a context where they are expected to work for their households’ survival strategies and as expected by the community. The thesis demonstrates that if the gap between the legal frameworks on child labour and the reality of child labour on the ground is to be addressed, there is a need to reimagine and restate the notion of childhood through the lens of integrated childhood. This new integrated childhood perspective acknowledges the reality that children's roles are incorporated into household survival strategies and community expectations, which sometimes diverge from the legally framed notion of childhood and child labour captured in international and Malawi's legal frameworks. The study explores its research questions by employing socio-legal research methods that first involve desk research, followed by empirical field research that incorporates Theatre for Development (TfD) as a research approach. Through a performative analysis in the TfD process, the child labour legal framework is examined alongside the communities’ lived realities to explore both analytical and practical solutions to the problem of child labour in Malawi.