Child labour and education: 
a case study from south-eastern Zimbabwe 
M.F.C. BOURDILLON 
ABSTRACT 
This article looks at a system by which children contract to 
work for tea estates as a condition of attendance at their 
boarding schools. The children have very little free time and 
the conditions are harsh. Nevertheless, attendance at the school 
is by choice and the schools offer opportunities for many who 
would not otherwise get to school. They even offer some 
advantages to those children who have alternatives available. 
The interests of these children would not be served by simply 
banning this form of labour. 
WIntroduction 
E ALL KNO 
1 
W now that when we study a society we must not 
focus solely on men, who comprise only half the population. As 
we have criticized classical anthropologists of the past for neglecting 
women, perhaps the next generation of anthropologists will be 
criticizing us for neglecting children. Resources of families do not 
always reach children equally and interests of children do sometimes 
conflict with interests of adults. Moreover, in many situations children 
play a significant role in family livelihood and children make their own 
decisions, which may affect this livelihood. 
The latest official figures for Zimbabwe show 43 per cent of the 
population to be under the age of 15 and 56 per cent to be under 20 
(calculated from Central Statistics Office 1998 Table 2.3a). Around 
1 An earlier draft of this paper was presented to the Association of 
Anthropologists for Southern Africa in Harare, in January 1999. 1 
am grateful to colleagues for useful comments on this occasion. 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 5
35 000 households, roughly one in 70 nation-wide, are headed by 
persons under 20; of these over 3000 are headed by persons under 
IB (extracted from id. Table 5.7). Other studies suggest that these 
figures are underestimates: they miss households in which an older 
person is present but is to old or too ill to act as household head (see 
Foster et al. 1997). In any case the figures are likely to increase 
with AIDS taking a toll of the adult population without a significant 
drop in the birth rate. Yet, in planning a multi-disciplinary project on 
livelihoods in south-eastern Zimbabwe, it was not initially obvious to 
everyone that somebody should be paying attention to children. 
There is a problem with paying attention to the children. When 
we recently had a conference on the state of children in southern 
Africa there was adequate representation of women, but no children 
were present. The nearest we got to hearing children's voices was 
through my quotations of children's essays. The problem is that by 
the time children have the necessary background to partake in 
academic debate, they are no longer children. Childhood is a 
transitory stage in the lives of us all and it ranges from the total 
inability and dependence of infants at one end of the spectrum to 
independent adulthood at the other. We have all been through 
childhood and assume our knowledge with hindsight supersedes, their 
own limited understanding of the world: it is too easy for us as adults 
to think we know what is best for children. Yet it is important to 
listen to what children have to say about their lives and their needs, 
even if their knowledge and experience are limited. Too frequently, 
children are simply pushed into whatever fits adult interests. 
I made a study of selected schools run by tea estates in the Chipinge 
District, coined earn-and-learn, in which pupils are provided with 
education, meals and boarding facilities on condition that they spend 
substantial time plucking tea. The pupils pay school fees and a token 
payment for board, and in return receive the same wage rate that 
adult pluckers receive. Besides paying the pupils their wages the 
company also spends appreciable amounts in subsidizing the schools. 
I spent four weeks at one of the boarding schools for the purpose 
of this study, staying with one of the teachers. I talked with children, 
teachers, parents, past pupils and others on the estates. I visited the 
6 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourdillon/CHILD LABOURAND EDUCATION 
homes of some of the children outside the estates. I set and marked 
an essay on how the children came into the system, as part of their 
school work. I made shorter visits to all the others schools in the 
scheme and also visited some of the schools in the neighbouring 
communal lands. I prepared a short questionnaire which students in 
selected classes filled in for me under my direction at both estate 
schools and neighbouring schools in the communal lands.2 
I have presented a preliminary description of the scheme 
(Bourdillon forthcoming). In this article I summarize that material 
and add in information that I have collected since then. I shall focus 
specifically on the issue of child labour. 
Child labour rosT OF us think we know what child labour is and consider it 
intolerable. Perhaps we have in mind the sweat shops of Europe 
in the 19th century, where impoverished children were forced to 
spend most of their waking lives working for a pittance. Perhaps we 
have heard of child labour in Asia in which children are bonded by 
impoverished parents to work virtually as slaves. 
A report on the Indian gemstone industry notes that in Surat 
children accompany working parents and start working without an 
official employment card at an early age: children around twelve years 
old were working on cutting gemstones for 12 hours a day. Once 
they have completed their apprenticeship they are paid on a piece 
rate basis, which is 60-70 per cent of the rate for adult workers. In 
Jipur and Trichy there are up to 30 000 children working 8-10 hours 
a day in cramped conditions; like adults, but receiving a fraction of 
what adults earn (ICFTU et al. 1997.) Health problems among the 
children in this kind of work include blistered and infected fingers, 
eye strain, breathing problems from the dust and back-ache. Most of 
2 The research was financed by the Government of the Netherlands 
through a grant by NUFFIC as part of a joint project on livelihood 
by the Agricultural University of Wageningen, the University of 
Zimbabwe and the Department of Agricultural Technical and 
Extensions Services of the Ministry of Lands and Water 
Development in Zimbabwe. 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 7
us agree that this is an unacceptable form of child labour, although 
we should recognize that alternative options need to be found for 
the children. We congratulate ourselves that such forms of child labour 
are not prevalent in our own countries in Africa. 
On the other hand, we recognize that some work is an important 
part of children's education and socialization. Children, and specially 
girls, are expected to help with chores around the home from an 
early age and so learn household skills. Girls under ten years of age 
are often charged with caring for infants while their mothers work. 
Boys are expected to help in farm work and particularly in caring for 
domestic livestock. In urban areas children might be expected to help 
in their parents' commercial ventures, particularly in various kinds of 
small-scale trading. Certainly children are expected to work at school 
at a variety of tasks, few of which are directly productive. All such 
forms of child work are generally considered distinct from the 
intolerable forms of child labour. 
The distinction is not, however, always clear. In traditional African 
societies the work of girls can include quite onerous chores like 
carrying water for the household, which can have an adverse effect 
on the physical development of a girl's spine. Reynolds points to the 
significant contribution Tonga children in Zimbabwe make towards 
the household economy, with girls in particular spending much of their 
time in work-related activities even before they are ten years old 
(Reynolds 1991:41-92). In some societies boys are away from home 
weeks at a time herding animals and living under very harsh conditions. 
All over the world, small-scale agriculturists can be very productive 
precisely because they are able to exploit family labour to work long 
hours at peak seasons. Even in relatively well-off urban contexts girls 
are sometimes expected to do hours of housework over and above 
all their school work, leaving little time for relaxation and recreation. 
There are many cases of relatively well-off households agreeing 
to support the children of poorer kin. The children stay with wealthier 
relatives and receive food and perhaps schooling. In exchange they 
help with the house work. In practice this means they become virtually 
slaves. There are no fixed hours of duty: the child is on call twentyfour 
hours a day and seven days a week. There is no formal job 
8 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourdillon / CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
description, so the child may be asked to do anything. The wealthier 
patrons acquire a very cheap form of domestic labour under the 
ideology that they are doing the child a favour. Such conditions are 
often far worse than those of formal employment, where the children 
are at least paid for their work. 1 have come across children employed 
from dawn to dusk seven days a week protecting crops from animals, 
for which they get their keep and a pittance and have no chance of 
any kind of schooling. Domestic child labour, both paid and unpaid, is 
widespread in many countries in the world, including Africa: in this 
form of labour, children are particularly vulnerable to various forms 
of abuse because of their isolation in a domestic household.''Although 
some have argued that domestic labour is less exploitative than waged 
labour," Nieuwenhuys (1994:9, 203f) makes the point strongly that 
work within the family is not morally neutral. 
On the other hand there are forms of formal employment from 
which children may benefit. Even in developed countries children 
may earn a little income by doing a round of delivering newspapers 
every day. McKechnie and Hobbs (1998b) argue that the majority of 
children in Britain experience paid work before they are sixteen and 
that this has some benefits for the children in attaining self-reliance 
and some economic skills. It is also common for children to perform 
limited household chores for payment. Many African children earn a 
little income from part-time, informal trading. I recall an incident in 
Nigeria when a small girl refused to sell her whole stock of bananas 
to someone who wanted to buy them. She eventually explained that 
she could not sit there with her friends if she had nothing to sell. Not 
all forms of commercial employment of children are unacceptable. 
The executive director of UNICEF has tried to distinguish useful 
and educative forms of child work from intolerable and exploitative 
forms. She stated that UNICEF believes that child labour is 
exploitative if it involves: 
• full time work at too early an age 
• too many hours spent working 
:i For accounts of such work see Child Workers in Asia 13, 1, 
January-March, 1997, Bankok. 
4 See, for example, Bequele and Boyden, 1988: 2. 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 9
• work that exerts undue physical, social or psychological 
stress 
• work and life on the streets in bad conditions 
• inadequate pay 
• too much responsibility 
• work that hampers access to education 
• work that undermines children's dignity and self-esteem, 
such as slavery 
or bonded labour and sexual exploitation 
• work that is detrimental to full social and psychological 
development (Bellamy 1997:3^i).F 
This is a useful starting point though it leaves many issues vague. 
What is too early an age? How many working hours are too many? 
When children work and live on the streets, who is doing the 
exploiting? What is too much responsibility?6 What does this say about 
work that makes possible some, even limited, education for children 
who would otherwise have no access to it? At what stage does stress 
become undue? What do we say about work that eases some of the 
difficulties of life on the streets? Is it types of work that damage the 
self-esteem of children or, rather, the imposition of middle class values 
on their work (I have particularly in mind sex workers, where outside 
attitudes can destroy the self esteem of someone who is earning a 
good income for the whole family)? The UNICEF criteria raise 
questions concerning children who are at school and certainly do not 
get paid for work they do. Are too many hours of school work also 
exploitative? How much is acceptable when the pressure and stress 
is for children to conform or succeed?6 
On age, the ILO has recommended age limits of 15 for full 
employment, 18 for heavy work that could endanger health and 13 
5 In several contexts I have come across the opinion that the UN 
Convention on the Rights of the Child gives too much responsibility 
to children, particularly very young children, in Articles 12-16. 
11 There have been reports of increasing suicides among Japanese 
children due to pressure to succeed and there have been suicides 
among well-off children in Harare. 
10 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourdillon /CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
for light work, though it concedes that under certain conditions these 
could be lowered to 14,16 and 12, respectively. (ILO 1997:5). Again, 
this is a useful guide, specially for full-time employment and 
employment in heavy work. But the change from childhood to 
adulthood is in many societies a continual process with no clear 
boundaries. Girls and boys may be perceived to mature at different 
ages. Why should there be a' defining age for childhood? Children are 
often expected to help in the home at a much earlier age than 12. 
School-work also starts much earlier. Why is work for which children 
are remunerated so much worse? 
Although work can diminish a child's performance at school (see 
McNeil 1984), the work experience can provide useful forms of 
socialization. One study in Lagos pointed out that although children 
in part time work had slightly lower classroom results in school, these 
children were over represented in leadership positions (Oloka 1991). 
Are we paying sufficient attention to the educative value of 
commercial work? 
In spite of these unanswered questions, we have a list of criteria 
that can help us to decide whether we are prepared to tolerate a 
particular type of work. The next general question is: how do we 
respond to intolerable forms of child labour? 
One of the key themes in the United Nations Convention on the 
Rights of the Child is that in all matters concerning children, the best 
interests of the children shall be paramount (Articles 3, 9,10, 20,21, 
37 and 40), and it is clear that, in working out these best interests, 
the children should be heard and have a say in decisions that affect 
them (Article 12). There is a problem when children claim the right 
to work to relieve their situation, when work comes into conflict with 
other rights, such as the right to education and the right to relaxation 
and time for creative activities. We know that people under stress 
pay more attention to immediate needs than to long-term 
development and children in particular are liable to sacrifice 
development for immediate satisfaction. Young children do not have 
the experience to enable them to think realistically in the long term. 
There is sometimes a tension between what we as adults perceive to 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 11
be in the children's long-term interests and the children's own 
perceptions of their interests. 
In the past I have worked with street children. The ability to earn 
an income is the one thing that enables them to cope with the variety 
of problems that face them. Their efforts are sometimes denigrated 
by others in society (see Richter and Swart-Kruger 1996). To deprive 
such children of paid labour is to disempower those children who are 
most deprived and most need empowerment.7 Studies in India, 
Bangladesh and Morocco (Lolichen and Ratna 1997; White 1996; 
Zalami 1998) have shown how the children can suffer both materially 
and socially when deprived of their jobs as a result of international 
pressure against child labour. When business people accede to such 
pressure they are rarely concerned about the interests of the 
children: rather, they are worried about maintaining sales and profits 
(see Durai 1997: 52). When adults take over jobs from the children, 
there is no guarantee that children will benefit from the extra income 
that the adults earn, even when their parents receive higher wages 
than did the children. 
Rather than debate about our concepts of child labour and what 
forms are tolerable, it would be more profitable to turn our focus 
more sharply on the children in their different social contexts (see 
McKechnie & Hobbs I 998a 42-43). We should focus on what the 
work means for the children rather than how it fits in with an external 
categorization of childhood. Such a focus would enable us to consider 
what improvements are desirable and possible in their particular 
situations. 
With respect to the eam-and-leam schools in south-eastern 
Zimbabwe my argument is that, for all their problems, the schools 
offer an extra option for children in need. The best interests of the 
children does not require a ban on such institutions. The interests of 
some children are served by their ability to combine schooling with 
earning a living. Nevertheless, there are needs that are being 
neglected in these schools. I have been instrumental in some 
7 This point was made by Pamela Reynolds at the conference of the 
state of children in southern Africa in Harare, July 1998. See Bhebe 
and Mlambo, forthcoming. 
12 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Description of the schools 
Bourdillon/CHILDLABOURAND EDUCATION 
improvements in the system and 1 shall continue to argue for further 
changes. 
Tyear 
HE SYSTE 
s evolve 
M OF
d 
eam-and-learn 
out of attempts 
tha 
to provid 
t has bee 
e adul 
n goin 
t educatio 
g for ove 
n fo
r
r 
sixt 
farm
y 
labourers. There are two secondary schools in the scheme and four 
primary schools. Currently the system operates only for the final two 
years of primary school and the company management has decided 
to phase out the system at this level. Initially the scheme involved 
older children and young adults, but now children start schooling 
younger and there appears to be wide agreement that many primary 
children are too young to work. One of the primary schools operated 
without providing boarding facilities and makes fewer demands on 
the children than the others: here I am focusing on the boarding 
schools, which are larger and where demands on the children are 
heavy. 
Any child under 13 is automatically exempted from working 
(though one headmaster pointed out that the income is popular and 
children often do not admit to being under age). Also exempted are 
children of company staff of sufficient rank and children with health 
problems. Those exempted from work do not board at the school: 
they are day scholars, paying normal school fees. 
The secondary school I focused on had 366 children on the register 
in the middle of 1998, of whom 38 per cent were girls. One father 
managed to send his daughter elsewhere, saying that girls should 
not have to do such heavy work. A more likely general reason for the 
disproportion between boys and girls is that families are generally 
more protective of girls and more reluctant to allow them to stay 
away from home. Also girls are sometimes able to earn their school 
fees by keeping house for a distant relative. 
The schools cater for older children who started school late or 
who have missed some years of schooling - often both. If children 
start school at the age of six, they should reach grade six at the age 
of 11 and form one at the age of 13. Only 16 per cent of children in 
the earn-and-learn schools are in this age range. The mean age at 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 13
entry to grade six in the primary schools is 14.2 years old and the 
mean age at entry to term one in the secondary schools is 15.6s year 
old At entry to form one, 23 per cent are 17 years old and above 
(and consequently hardly deserving to be classified as "children"), 
with several pupils over 20. But this is not very different from schools 
in the neighbouring communal lands, where the average age at entry 
to form one was 15.5; but where only 15 per cent were 17 or older at 
entry into form one. 
Earnings vary considerably, both according to the time of year 
and to the skill and enthusiasm of the individual children. Payment 
depends on the amount of tea plucked and the rate is the same as 
that paid to adult pluckers. The annual net earnings for July 1997 to 
June 1998 (after school fees and meals) for a haphazard sample came 
to around Z$2400. The highest earnings were just under $5000 and 
the lowest were $1250. The monthly mean for plucking ranges from 
over $400 in the peak season to less than $100 in the cold season 
(though some of the boys earn more than this from pruning).8 
The company provided the land on which the schools stand and 
the buildings and most of the equipment. They are fully electrified 
and the laboratories and practical rooms are better equipped than 
are most rural schools. The Ministry of Education provides teachers' 
salaries (which the company tops up for extra responsibilities) and a 
small allowance for each child. Government covers roughly 55 per 
cent of the costs of running the schools over and above fees (mostly 
in teachers' salaries). A company subsidy covers the remaining 45 
per cent (mainly boarding costs and some ancillary staff), which works 
out at approximately $1800 per year per working student. Moreover, 
in times of drought and in the cold season when'there is little work to 
do, the company keeps the children and provides board, even when 
their plucking does not cover the normal daily charge of $3. 50. The 
8 At the time of the study US $1 was equal to approximately Z$ 20. 
I obtained figures for wages paid to a haphazard sample of adult 
contract workers who had worked 21 or more days on selected 
months. The average earnings were over $800 in the peak season 
and if they work regularly throughout the year (including other 
work than plucking) they are likely to earn over $7000. 
14 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourdillon / CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
company also provides the best students with bonded scholarships 
for further education. 
Company officials argue that this labour is not cheap when 
compared with adult labour. But from the management point of view 
it has the advantage of being regular and reliable. They agree that in 
an ideal world there would be no need for such schools but, since 
government does not provide free education, they are able to fulfil a 
need in return for reliable labour. One could argue that the problems 
the company faces with adult labour are due to the low wages paid 
generally in agriculture, but that is not the issue here. 
Although children come to the school from all over the country, 
the majority (75 per cent) have homes in the Chipinge District. In 
the past the schools were less discriminate in whom they admitted, 
but local people asked the company to give priority to people in the 
neighbour-hood. Preference is given to those who have been to the 
primary schools of the company estates9 and many children go to 
pluck tea in the primary schools in order to improve their chances of 
admission into secondary school. In 1998 the estate primary schools 
increased from five streams in grade five (before the earn-and-learn 
system comes into operation) to nine streams in grade six and 13 
streams in grade seven in order to accommodate the children wishing 
to join the scheme. On the other hand, many children of estate 
workers move out of the estate schools to schools in the neighbouring 
communal lands at grade six in order to avoid the work. 
The hours are long. In the cold season children go to school in the 
mornings and work in the fields for up to 4% hours a day on weekdays 
and they work on Saturday mornings. Then they have a study period 
in the evenings. In the other two terms they work in the fields from 
dawn to midday and then have school and study periods in the 
afternoon and evenings. The first term of the year was particularly 
heavy, when pupils worked for eight hours a day six days a week, 
besides all their school work. Management agreed to a reduction of 
hours and several improvements in their conditions, but in 1999 pupils 
!l Seventy-two per cent of those at secondary schools had previously 
been to estate primary schools. 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 15
are still expected to do forty hours of plucking a week and a similar 
amount of time at school work. Apart from the hours, plucking can 
be hard work for those who are keen. They put the tea in baskets on 
their backs, which weigh up to 15 kilograms when full. Yet one finds 
the children in the fields by following the sound of happy chatter and 
singing. Most of them seem pretty cheerful at work when the sun is 
shining and not too hot. 
Teachers and pupils complain of the problem of dozing when they 
are at school after a hard morning of plucking. It is hard enough to 
keep awake during the heat of summer afternoons even when 
children are fresh. It is virtually impossible after less than six hours 
of sleep and many hours in the fields. 
Nobody appears to consider the issue of sleep. The company 
management demands hours of plucking that makes the scheme 
worth their while. The teachers want the children do well at school 
and set hours similar to those of other schools. So the children have 
to get up early - as is common for agricultural workers. Study cuts 
late into the night. Children complain of waking up tired, but blame 
this on the heavy work load rather than the lack of sleep. 
The schools follow a curriculum that caters for an academic 
education. They teach some practical subjects like metalwork, 
agriculture, carpentry and sewing, but the teaching of these subjects 
is oriented towards an examination syllabus rather than the practical 
use of the subjects in the contexts of the home life of the children. 
Results at primarily level in the earn-and-leam schools do not stand 
out from other schools in the district. At the secondary level results 
over the past three years are on a par with four of the five top schools 
in the district (one, Mt. Selinda, is far and away above the others): all 
of these are boarding schools, which are able to be more selective 
concerning their intake than day schools and which are able to provide 
better study facilities than most children have in their homes. The 
eam-and-learn schools provide better teacher accommodation 
than do most schools and the estates pay a responsibility allowance 
to teachers. This enables the estates to attract teachers and to be 
more selective in the appointment of teachers. But even in these 
schools over half the pupils fail to attain five passes in their o-level 
16 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2O0O
Bourdillon / CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
examinations and consequently profit little from a formal academic 
training. They are caught up in a somewhat inflexible education 
bureaucracy that pays little attention to the needs of children who 
are not likely to perform well in any examination. 
Recreation and play is limited but not entirely excluded. The school 
manages to fit in a little sport at weekends and during school hours: it 
has teams in netball, volleyball, soccer and athletics. When the school 
team plays against outside teams, only the players are normally 
released from work to attend. They have little time to practice and 
do not excel. There is also entertainment on Saturday evenings in 
the form of films or videos (supplied by the company) and events 
organized by the pupils. Once or twice a week time is made available 
for them to watch popular programmes on television. 
At the Christmas school holidays the children are required to 
remain and work, with a two-day break at Christmas. At this time 
they work from 5.30 to 12.30 in the mornings and from 2.00 to 5.00 
in the afternoons, with Saturday afternoons and Sundays off. This 
works out at a 57-hour working week. The pupils in form two and 
form four are allowed time free from work in October and November 
for their public examinations and consequently have no other holidays. 
The other children get a fortnight's break to go home in each of the 
other school holidays. 
The children have access to the estate clinics. Indeed they are 
required to obtain certification from the clinic staff if they wish to 
obtain sick leave from work. But there is no routine check on the 
health of individual children. From accounts of both children and staff, 
some children grow and put on weight as a result of a better and 
more regular diet than they had previously. 
The company can, and sometimes does, exclude children from the 
school on the grounds that they are not working well enough or when 
they miss work without proper authorization. On two of the estates, 
the usual practice is that the school is simply sent a list of pupils to be 
so punished and there is no discussion either with the pupils or the 
school authorities. Nevertheless, there is a system of communication, 
in which representatives of the pupils meet teachers and management, 
a system that has successfully resolved some potential 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 17
problems in recent years. The pupils have used these meetings to 
negotiate for improvements in their conditions. 
The regime is certainly harsh. At the school I studied in detail there 
is a drop-out rate of around 15 per cent in a normal year (and this 
figure does not include pupils who leave in the first few days and never 
got their names on to the register). Many of the children commented 
that they found it extremely hard at first. In the essays several of the 
children said that they thought of leaving immediately in the first few 
days of plucking in the peak season and in the rain. Many complained 
of having to work in heavy rain, even in thunder and lightning. 
Protective clothing is inadequate: children get scratched by the tea 
bushes and wounds sometimes fester in hot, humid conditions. But a. 
very common sentiment is that they become accustomed to the 
regime and it is not so bad. They talk of the support from other children. 
Dozing in class after work remains a problem but they speak of 
enjoying this school and of the help the school gives to so many poor 
children. Many past pupils commented that they were happy at the 
school: life was hard, but they had a goal and were achieving it. 
Some children commented that the work did not seem so bad when 
compared to conditions at home. Several of children said that they 
were used to working at home and some even commented that the 
work here is light compared to what they had to do at home.10 At 
home they never had time to read: here at least they are free at the 
weekends. Others remarked that at home they spent several hours 
walking to and from school every day and the work here simply 
replaces that. In neighbouring communal lands I have come across 
children walking 14 kilometres each way to school. 
The children at the school come from families in which it is taken 
for granted that children will share in the work and the responsibilities 
of the family. Young children from about ten years old are entrusted 
with the family wealth when they herd cattle. As we were inspecting 
the plot of tea of one of the parents, I jokingly remarked that his 
"' Por a study of children's work in another part of Zimbabwe's 
communal lands, see Reynolds 1991. For examples of children's 
work in a variety of situations, including home and informal work, 
see Bourdillon in press. 
18 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFWCA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourelillon / CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
daughter is doing the same work at school as she did at home, only 
before she was working for him for nothing and now she was being 
paid. He replied that his children were not working for him: they have 
a share in the home. Nevertheless work on the estate is very different 
from work at home. At home you can rest a little if you are tired or 
unwell. On the estate there is pressure to go on, whatever the 
conditions and however you feel. Children say that if you get sick at 
the schools, it takes long to recover. 
One girl described how her parents could no longer pay her fees 
and sent her to stay with her grandmother more than a hundred 
kilometres away. Her grandmother paid her school fees and she 
looked after the home of her grandmother. But she was dissatisfied 
with the schooling and the conditions there and decided to come home 
and then to try earn-and-learn. 
A number of the older children at secondary schools in the 
communal lands earn pocket money by working on tea estates in the 
school holidays, at weekends and perhaps even at the beginning of 
term in order to earn their school fees. The headmaster of one has 
about 20 to 40 older children who ask for time off at month's end to 
go and collect their wages. At another school many claimed to pay 
their own school fees by picking coffee in the school holidays, while 
several of those who relied on adults had been sent away until the 
fees were paid. 
There are a number of problem areas in the earn-and-learn 
schools. The hours of work are long. The children have little time for 
recreation and.creative activities. The conditions of work are harsh. 
Children have little time to spend with their families. The children 
certainly have complaints and in the past there has been a history of 
strikes about a variety of issues relating to conditions at the school. 
Yet in spite of such hardship most of the children choose to stay on 
at the schools. Many people who have been through the system speak 
in its favour. Parents and others express grave concern at the 
suggestion that the company is considering stopping this use of child 
labour under pressure from outside. The deputy headmaster of one 
school is himself a product of the system and said that people who 
write critical articles in the newspapers do not speak to people like 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 19
himself. "How can you say [the company] is bad? If this scheme wasn't 
here, where would I be?" He said other children from his area who 
did not join the scheme are tea-pluckers and farmers and find life 
very hard. 
The case in favour of earn-and-learn Wrespons 
HENEVER I 
e wa 
discusse 
s alway 
d th 
s tha 
e schoo 
t peopl 
l wit 
e wen 
h loca 
t ther 
l people 
e becaus 
, the first 
e of 
poverty. If the schools were closed these children would have no 
education. When pupils in form four wrote a composition on how they 
came to the school, even the handful of day scholars invented stories 
of poverty forcing them out of school until they heard of the eamand-
leam schools. In the compositions virtually all the children spoke 
of the inability of their parents to pay school fees and many mentioned 
problems even of having enough to eat at home. The general 
consensus was that if government fulfilled its obligation of providing 
free education for all, no one would come to these schools. 
Some children speak of a shortage of food, clothes and other 
essentials at home. Many had to leave school and "sit" at home for 
lack of fees. Many mentioned that their parents were not working. In 
some cases the father had stopped working as a result of illness, old 
age or some other problem. A few had lost one or both parents. 
According to the common perception that people are compelled to 
attend these schools out of poverty, I expected to find that 
significantly more of the children in the scheme come from parents 
who have either no formal employment or only unskilled employment. 
Indeed, if we look at the employment of the parents (Tables 1 and 2, 
facing page), we find a few more from the communal area schools 
had parents in professional employment. In both cases the majority 
of parents are not in formal employment. Many of these have retired, 
or at least have had some formal employment in the past. It appears 
reasonable to extend the differences in formal employment to this 
group, and to conclude that the children in the earn-and-learn 
system often do come from poorer homes. 
In both groups the fathers of fewer than half the children were in 
formal employment and fewer than 10 per cent had mothers in formal 
employment. Many of the children recorded their parents as doing 
20 JOURNAL Of SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Professional 
TABLE 1: EMPLOYMENT OF FATHER 
EARN^D-LEARN COMMUNAL LANDS 
N=983 N=135 % 
0.6 6 
31 15.3 150 Skilled and semi-skilled 
21.7 213 Unskilled formal employment 25 
19.0 187 Self-employed in agriculture 19 
26 2.6 Other self-employment 
40.8 401 50 None 
Professional 
Bourdilton / CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
nothing, notwithstanding my emphasis that subsistence farming is 
not doing nothing. I know that in some cases the parents did have 
plots in the communal areas, even if they were not enthusiastic about 
working them. 
IM comes from a family in a neighbouring communal land. His father 
has a small plot of tea and also grows fruit and subsistence crops. His 
mother trades in fruit and other products from Mozambique besides 
working on the farm. He is the oldest of eight children and attended 
the local primary and secondary schools. But the tea plot is not well 
maintained and the houses are in a poor state of repair. He 
complained that he used to miss up to a month at the beginning of 
every term trying to raise money for school fees. He noticed that the 
estate school produced better examination results than the local 
school. So he asked his father to be allowed to transfer, and so 
% 
5.1 7 
23.0 
18.5 
14.1 
2.2 3 
37.0 
% 
1.5 
2.2 
4.5 
39.6 
3.0 
TABLE 2: EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHER 
EARNVWD-LEARN COMMUNAL LANDS 
% N=134 
0.5
7 
N=978
5 
70 Skilled and semi-skilled 
5.7 56 Unskilled formal employment 
30.6 299 Self-employed in agriculture 
Other self-employment 9.5 93 
2
3
6 
53
4 
66 53.0 49.3 518 None 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 21
release money for the fees of his younger brothers and sisters. He 
was doing well in his final year ifi 1998. He listed his parents as doing 
nothing. 
Other children explained that their parents were too old or too sick 
to work. In some cases the parents did not have land. Whatever the 
exact numbers, many families had no regular income and money for 
school fees at the secondary level must therefore be a problem. 
A number of the pupils described how they spent time just sitting 
at home, in some cases for several years, with little hope of anyone 
financing further schooling. In some cases the problem was provoked 
by sickness or death of a parent, or a parent losing his income and 
wealth for some other reason. Then they heard of these schools where 
you can earn your own school fees while you attend school and so 
were able to go back to school. Information usually came from some 
relative who had worked in Chipinge district. In some cases they 
described how they applied to the school and then had to persuade 
their families to allow them to attend. Several of the children 
commented on how their problems arose after the death of a parent, 
particularly the father, as the following cases illustrate: 
SP is twenty years old and in grade seven in one of the estate 
schools. He was born in Chikore, nearby in the district and this is still 
his home. His father died in 1994 and his mother in 1995. They are 
eleven children altogether. They live with their grandfather in 
Chikore who has many children to look after and cannot afford 
school fees. One of his elder brothers has moved to Chimanimani 
where he has a job, but he took only his own family. The other two 
brothers are still looking for work. He has four older sisters who are 
now married. He was at school at Chikore and completed grade six 
there in 1995, when his mother died. There was no money to 
continue and he and his younger brother and two younger sisters 
were all just sitting at home. He came to the estate school in 1998 to 
continue with grade seven. Now he is paying the fees for his three 
younger siblings. He wants to complete his schooling as it is the only 
way to improve his situation. 
22 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourdillon / CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
TABLE 3: SOURCE OF SCHOOL FEES 
N=130 % 
53 
32 
29 
10
1 
15 
Father 
Mother 
Other relative 
Social welfare or other agency 
Other (friend) 
Self 
Total (140) 
Notes: 
1. At one school around a quarter of the pupils had been 
2. Eight pupils (6 per cent) listed both father and mother and are 
3. One pupil listed mother and other relatives and is included in 
4. One pupil listed both mother and self and is listed in both 
sent away, to collect their fees. 
included in both categories. 
both categories. 
categories. 
TABLE 4: DEATH OF PARENTS 
EARNAND-LEARN COMMUNAL LANDS 
N=983 % N=135 % 
195 
88 
36 
247 
23.7 19.8 
8.9 9.0 
2.2 3.7 
32 
12
3 
41 30.4 25.1 
Father dead 
Mother dead 
Both parents dead 
At least one parent dead 
KB is 17 and in grade seven in one of the earn-and-learn schools. 
His home is nearby in the Chipinge District. His father died in 1990 
after being sick for about five years. His mother lives at home and 
earns a living from weaving baskets: she has no fields. He is the 
oldest in the family, with three younger brothers aged 16, 10 and 
eight, and two sisters aged 14 an 12. The only one at school apart 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 23 
41 
25 
22
8
1 
12 
(109)
from himself is the 16-year old brother, who earns money from 
rearing chickens for sale and so can pay his fees at a communal area 
school. He did grades one to five at a school in Chimanimani district 
He stayed with his father's younger brother who fed him and looked 
after him. He earned his school fees by doing odd jobs in the 
holidays, like weeding fields. He came to join earn-and-leam in 
grade six. 
The latter case illustrates how the earn-and-learn scheme is one 
option in a variety of coping mechanisms that children and families 
may try to utilize in order to earn much needed income. 
I expected to find significantly more orphans in the earn-andlearn 
schools than in neighbouring schools in the communal lands. 
In the latter schools most children relied on parents, particularly their 
fathers, for their fees (Table 3). But there were as many orphans in 
these schools as in the earn-and-learn schools (Table 4). There 
are a variety of ways of coping with the death of parents: the earnand-
learn system provides an extra option for some. 
More generally, it appears that the earn-and-learn scheme is 
one of several options open to the pupils who join it. I met a number 
of pupils who had left or were expelled and were able to continue 
their education elsewhere. Two girls were now walking from the 
estate to a school in the communal lands some six kilometres away. 
They said they liked the estate school and its teachers were good, 
but they did not like all the work. So their parents, who were in 
unskilled employment, agreed to pay their fees at the day school. 
Another lad had been forced to leave for his involvement in protests 
at the school. By this time the family plot of tea had become 
established and was producing an income, so they could now pay the 
fees that they could not afford a few years previously. 
One factor affecting poverty is family size. The average number 
of siblings of the same father was 8.4 for children in earn-and-learn, 
marginally higher than the average in the day schools." This was 
11 7.5 for children in the communal area schools. For both groups 
the average number of siblings of the same mother was 5.6. 
Zimbabwe used to have a population growth rate of over '•) per cent 
before it was reduced by the AIDS epidemic. 
24 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
BoundiHon /CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
never mentioned as a problem although people did comment that 
even low school fees become burdensome when there are many 
children. 
Some of the pupils in the eam-and-learn scheme came from families 
who were not particularly poor. In these cases the children had opted 
to enter the scheme for a variety of reasons. Some of the pupils 
commented that they are able to help their families by attending the 
school. The usual practice is for the children to spend their hardearned 
money on themselves. The parents regard this as the 
children's money and many have little idea of the amounts earned. 
Indeed several parents continue to support their children with gifts 
of food and occasional money especially in the cold season when 
incomes from plucking are low. The most usual context in which 
children talk about helping their families financially refers to the fact 
that they are releasing money to pay for the school fees of siblings. 
Nevertheless, some children contribute gifts in cash and kind to the 
parents. In some cases others depend on the earnings of the pupils, 
particularly when these are orphans. 
D is a 15-year-old girl, the eldest of four children. Her parents died 
when she was ten. She is thankful that, because of earn-and-learn, 
she can go to school and has money besides to help her younger 
brothers and sisters. 
This illustrates another type of household that is missed in statistics 
on child-headed households, namely those that are headed by an adult 
but depend on children for their income. In earn-and-learn, far from 
having to draw on family resources, the children can help their 
families. 
Another attraction of the scheme is independence. Several of the 
children expressed pride in supporting themselves. A few mentioned 
the convenience of having no-one blame you if you do badly at school. 
It is not uncommon for parents to reprove a child, saying they are 
wasting their money on the child's schooling. In earn-and-learn such 
reproofs are not possible. It seems likely that in some cases the 
children had been taken out of school as a result of poor performance, 
or at least that parents had given priority to brighter siblings. 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 25
T, a 14-year-old boy, described how his parents took him out of 
school to herd cattle while they continued to pay school fees for his 
for younger siblings: he is clearly a weak student, which might well 
explain the parents' decision. 
Such children have a chance to stay on at school through earn-andlearn. 
The schools' curricula do not cater well for such students but 
they do provide an environment in which the students are doing 
something useful for themselves and can acquire a degree of selfesteem 
through their earnings. In such cases the classrooms may 
provoke more stress and humiliation than the labour. 
Many children like boarding school in order to avoid close parental 
control. One girl with parents in Harare put this as the specific reason 
for being here: she likes to be at boarding school and she likes to be 
independent. Another girl comes from a reasonably well-off family 
and joined the eam-and-leam scheme to avoid pressure to enter 
an arranged marriage. She said she wanted to continue her schooling 
and become a teacher. Other girls mentioned the fact that some 
parents thought it a waste of money to educate girls. Such a decision 
may well be related to poverty: parents have to consider priorities in 
their attempt to stretch their resources. Whatever the reason, for 
the daughters of such parents the only way to continue schooling 
was through earn-and-learn. 
A number of the pupils mentioned the attraction of the good 
education provided at the school. Children commented on the 
dedication of their teachers, remarking that the suffering of the 
children makes both teachers and pupils focus well on their studies 
when they have a chance to do so. Related to this are the attractive 
facilities offered by the schools: electricity for study at night, wellequipped 
classrooms and labs, a well-stocked library, video and cinema 
entertainment. Although these facilities fall well below those of the 
better urban schools they represent a marked improvement on what 
is offered in the day schools in the communal areas of Chipinge 
District. : 
Finally there is the attraction of money. Apart from being able to 
afford smart school uniforms and all the stationary they need, children 
26 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000
Boundilbn / CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
from impoverished homes appreciate the fashionable clothes they 
can buy with their earnings. 
Several children, and some of the parents, mentioned the benefits of 
the discipline that they received at the school. There have even been 
rare cases of children being sent to the school from well-off homes 
precisely as a punishment for undisciplined behaviour. Several 
mentioned the motto, "Suffer now to enjoy later," as a justification 
for the way they had to live. Nevertheless, some parents who were 
happy for their elder sons to join the scheme struggled to send 
daughters and younger children elsewhere to save them from the 
hardships of working on the estates 
I have shown that people consider poverty to be the main reason 
for joining the earn-and-learn scheme. Indeed, it is hard to conceive 
that anyone would put up the system if there were no constraints 
arising from poverty. I have argued that, in spite of the hardship of 
the scheme, the schools provide a number of attractions and some 
children join the scheme even though they are not strictly forced to 
do so through material necessity. The earn-and-learn schools 
provide an extra option for children and families who are struggling 
to find the means for education. 
Discussion IT
o 
WOUL 
f an agricultura 
D be easy t 
l syste 
o condem 
m tha
n th 
t exploit 
e earn-and-learn 
s unskilled labou 
school 
r an 
s a
d
s 
chil 
par
d
t 
labour in particular (see Grier 1994; 1995). But this does not 
adequately describe either the attitude of management at various 
levels to the schools, nor the benefits that children and their 
communities perceive to arise from the schools. An alternative 
approach is try to play the part of the dispassionate observer, who 
describes and refrains from any kind of judgement. I have argued 
elsewhere that the responsibilities of field work involve judgements 
and action (Bourdillon 1997). My purpose in doing the research was 
to have some influence on the institutions I was studying. 
An international conference on Child Labour in Oslo, October 1997, 
comprised representatives of 39 countries, together with representatives 
from United Nations and other international organizations, 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 27
employers, workers (including children) and many non-governmental 
organizations dealing with children. They agreed that countries should 
progressively move towards the elimination of all child labour for 
children of school age, to include any activity that interferes with 
children's development and education. (Agenda for action: §2.4.). 
Significantly, they also resolved that in developing national 
programmes of action, countries should: 
View the child in its social context, including his/her family and 
general situation, and ensure that the voices of civil society, including 
those of the children themselves, their families and the local 
community, are heard in an appropriate and meaningful way when 
policies are developed and actions against child labour are decided. 
In an ideal world children would not have to work for their living and 
they would all have uninhibited access to education. Also there would 
be no poverty. There would be no countries in which the economies 
are not sufficiently developed to provide for the young and old without 
a contribution from them. There would be no households headed by 
children. But we have to cope with a world that is sadly far from such 
an ideal. 
Besides, much of the discussion on child labour is heavily influenced 
by Western, middle-class ideas on childhood and education. The 
question remains as to how children are to grow in responsibility, 
especially economic responsibility and whether it is not a good thing 
for economic activities such as labour to be progressively introduced 
into their lives. In many societies children are not perceived as 
passively receiving their livelihood from adults: rather they are valued 
for their contribution to the household, currently or in the future 
(see Gibbs 1994:271). To prevent them from earning income is to 
remove their source of status in the community. There is the further 
point that educational systems do not cater well for all the pupils, and 
some children may well benefit as much from meaningful employment 
as they do from incomprehensible exercises in the classroom. 
Rothstein (1996:361-2) observed in Mexico a movement away from 
school and towards work, even among those who could afford school, 
when this was not longer seen as a means of upward mobility. 
28 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourdillon /CHILD LABOURAND EDUCATION 
If we look at the contexts of the children, we find that for children in 
difficult circumstances, the earn-and-learn schools provide an extra 
option, which some of the children are happy to take advantage of. 
The children do not want the schools to be closed. Even those who 
have not managed to complete their courses in the system 
acknowledge that it offers something useful to those who can cope. 
The children would like changes and particularly a reduction of 
working hours (even if that would mean less money). They also want 
other changes and have occasionally made their feelings felt through 
recourse to strike action. But they want the institutions to continue. 
The company that runs the schools is a public company which has 
to make profits for its share-holders. Its purpose is the production of 
tea and coffee, not to run humanitarian institutions. Like many large 
organizations it is prepared to run primary schools for the benefit of 
children of their own staff. But secondary schools require more 
expense and organization and to justify maintaining these schools 
the company needs some economic advantage. While the schools do 
provide reliable labour, there are alternatives, one significant one 
being mechanization. To demand drastic changes too suddenly would 
jeopardize the viability of the institutions. At the same time many in 
senior management positions do have a humanitarian interest in their 
work force generally and the school pupils particularly. And many 
have an interest in wider developments in the District. 
The teachers are caught between the company interests and their 
pupils. Generally, they are concerned that the children do not have 
sufficient time and energy for maximum proficiency at the school 
work. But they need to maintain the confidence of estate management 
if they are to negotiate successfully on behalf of their pupils. 
Also they have an interest in maintaining their position at the school: 
although they are employed by the ministry of education the company 
has occasionally demanded the transfer of teachers they regard as 
troublesome. 
We should not allow market forces to dictate the treatment of 
children. Society has an obligation to protect disadvantage groups, 
from brute market forces. Management, however, recognizes the 
needs of the children as a factor in calculating profits, since a healthy 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 29
and contented workforce is necessary for the smooth operation of 
the company. Besides, management mostly comes from middle-class 
backgrounds that acknowledge humanitarian values. In negotiations 
with management, one can appeal to humanitarian interests and to 
outside pressures, to bend the scales in favour of those with least 
power. 
REFERENCES 
Bellamy, C. 1997. The State of the World's Children 1997 Summary, 
UNICEF 
Bequele, A. and Boyden, J. (eds.) 1988. Combatting Child Labour, 
Geneva, International Labour Office 
Central Statistics Office 1998. Inter-Census Demographic Survey 
1997, Harare 
Bourdillon, M.F.C. 1997. Studying thy neighbour: reflections on 
participation. Anthropology and Humanism 22, 2, 150-158 
Bourdillon, M.F.C. (ed.) in press. Working Children in Zimbabwe. 
Harare: Weaver 
Bourdillon, M.F.C. forthcoming. Earn-and-learn: work for education 
in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. In The Condition of the Child 
in Southern Africa, ed. N. Bhebe and A. Mlambo 
Durai, J. 1997. Helping Business to Help Stop Child Labour: A 
report by Anti-Slavery International 
Foster, G., Makufa, C, Drew, R. and Kralovec, E. 1997. Factors leading 
to the establishment of child-headed households — the case of 
Zimbabwe. Health Transitions Review 7 (Suppl. 2), 157-170 
Gibbs, S. 1994. Post-war social reconstruction in Mozambique: reframing 
children's experience of trauma and healing. Disasters 18, 
3, 268-76 
Grier, B. 1994. Invisible hands: the political economy of child labour 
iri colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1930. Journal of Southern African 
Studies 20, 1, 27-52 
30 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000
Bourdifkin /CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION 
Grier, B. 1995. "Earn as you learn": child labor and schooling on the 
tea estates of colonial Zimbabwe. Paper presented to the Annual 
Meeting of the African Studies Association, Orlando Florida, 
November 6, 1995 
ICFTU et al., 1997. Precious lives: children labour and other labour 
rights in the diamond and gemstone industry. Paper presented to 
the International Conference on Child Labour, Oslo, October 1997, 
by International Conference of Free Trade Unions; Universal Alliance 
of Diamond Workers; and International Federation of Commercial, 
Clerical, Professional and Technical Employees 
ILO 1997. Protecting Children in the World of Work. Labour 
Education 1997/3, 108. Geneva, International Labour Office 
International Conference on Child Labour, 1997. Agenda for Action. 
Oslo 
Lolichen, P.J. and Ratna, K. 1997. Harming Children by ignoring 
their Voices: Experiences from Bangladesh, India and Morocco. 
(Draft Dossier) The Centre for Applied Research and Documentation, 
The Concerned for Working Children, Bangalore, India 
McKechnie, J. and Hobbs, S. 1998a. Working Children: Reconsidering 
the Debate. Report of the of the International Working Group 
on Child Labour. Defense for Children International & International 
Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect 
McKechnie, J. and Hobbs, S.I. 998b. Work by the young: the economic 
activity of school aged children. Paper presented at the Johann Jacobs 
Foundation Conference on Youth in the Cities: Successful Mediators 
of Normative Development, Marbach, Germany, October 22-25th 
McNeil, L. 1984. Lowering Expectations: The Impact of Student 
Employment on Classroom Knowledge, Madison, Wisconsin Center 
for Education Research 
Nieuwenhuys, 0.1994. Children's Lifeworlds: Gender, Welfare and 
Labour in the Developing World, London, Routledge 
Oloka, B.O. 1991. Children's work in urban Nigeria: a case study of 
young Lagos streel traders, in Protecting Working Children (ed.) 
WE. Myers, London, Zed Books 11-23 
Reynolds, P. 1991. Dance Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambezi 
Valley. Harare, Baobab Books 
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 NO. 2 JULY 2000 31
Richter, L. and Swart-Kruger, J. 1996. Society makes survival a crime. 
In Child Youth Care 14, 6, 17-19 
Rothstein, F.A. 1996. Flexible accumulation, youth labor and schooling 
in a rural community in Mexico. Critique of Anthropology 16, 4, 
361-379 
White, B.1996. Excerpts from globalisation and the child labour 
problem. Child Workers in Asia 12, 4, 9-10 
Zalami, F.B. 1998. Forgotten on the Pyjama Trail: A Case Study 
of Garment Workers in M4knes (Morocco) Dismissed from their 
Jobs Following Foreign Media Attention. International Working 
Group on Child Labour 
32 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 15 No. 2 JULY 2000