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132 Int'l Lab. Rev. 371 (1993)
Child Labour in Africa

handle is hein.journals/intlr132 and id is 385 raw text is: International Labour Review, Vol. 132, 1993, No. 3 Child labour in Africa Michel BONNET* T he purpose of the following pages is to take stock of child labour in Africa and to offer certain methodological reflections on the way to approach it. Research has concentrated chiefly on the French-speaking countries of Africa, although the information available on other parts of the continent suggests that child labour occurs elsewhere under similar conditions.' What work and at what age? This question could be tackled by starting from applicable legislation, since in each country there are special regulations concerning the protection of children at work. A legal approach would, however, be extremely unlikely to throw much light on the subject, at least in those African countries which concern us. Legislation favours industry, whereas we are dealing with countries which are basically agricultural; it covers the formal sector, where it is fairly unusual to find children at work; it does not apply to so-called family businesses or domestic work or even agriculture, where child labour is most common. In other words, the law scarcely takes account of the real-life activities of children in Africa today at all. Rather than applying a strict, ready-made definition of child labour to survey the situation in Africa and highlighting a number of predetermined phenomena, it seems preferable to define work as including all activities, except attendance at school and occupations which children themselves describe as games, regardless of the status assigned to them in their social environment. When we use the expression child labour , therefore, we are using it in this broad sense of the term. We should begin by distinguishing three different age groups: * International Labour Organization. 'This article makes use of the work of the Sub-Regional Seminar (French-speaking countries of Africa) on the Abolition of Child Labour and the Improvement of Working Conditions for Children, held in Dakar from 24 to 28 February 1992. Report and documents: Conditions of Work and Welfare Facilities Branch, ILO, Geneva, 1992. Copyright © International Labour Organization 1993

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