BOOK REVIEW 
Earning a Life: Working Children in Zimbabwe, edited by Michael 
Bourdillon, Weaver Press, 2000, pb, 220pp. 0 7974 2162 9 
OCCASIONALLY ONE READS a book that opens a window on to an entirely 
new world and, by so doing, shakes everything one knows about the 
old. Such a book, in its own modest way, is Earning a Life, edited by 
Michael Bourdillon. While it does not pretend to provide a definitive 
picture, it offers a large number of carefully-drawn case studies are of 
street vendors in Harare suburbs and in downtown Harare and 
Masvingo, and at rural growth points. The work that children do in the 
home, both as servants to their own and other people's families and as 
carers for terminally ill relatives who are often their own mothers is also 
examined. Sketches are presented of the lives of children in official 
employment on commercial tea estates and unofficial employment in 
small-scale irrigation farms as well as children working in informal gold 
and chrome mines. 
The studies contain no instances of "shock-horror" cases of children 
working as prostitutes or soldiers This is partly because such stories 
are very difficult to find: serious abuse of children is always well-hidden. 
It is also partly a matter of authorial choice: the aim is to identify the 
average or normal situation rather than the extreme. The ages of the 
children studied ranges from 12 to 17 years though some readers may 
argue that 17-year-olds are scarcely "children", although vulnerable in 
many childlike ways. 
The tale is a harrowing one, although the authors insist that it is not. 
They point out that many of the children work for their own families 
and the work they do is perceived as an extension of the kind of 
contribution that children routinely make to their households. This 
contribution to the family economy is traditional in many societies 
throughout the world, not an aberrant recent development. Thelives of 
many children in Zimbabwe are harsh and some of the young workers 
here described may be better off than their non-working peers, as they 
are earning money which is nearly always used to sustain their families. 
They are, therefore, valued by their families because they are creating 
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value within the family economy. The authors remind us of the bonds of 
affect that tie these workers to their families, which makes them proud 
to be able to contribute to their welfare, even if their own contribution is 
unpaid. Most important, working children are able, to some extent, to 
secure some of their earnings towards their own educational costs. 
In addition, the authors caution us on several occasions against 
making "adult, middle-class" judgements. These cautions are intended 
stave off facile blanket moral judgements. Their point is that the particular 
situation of each working child needs to be examined before a judgement 
about exploitation or otherwise. But, as we are adults and middle-class, 
we cannot, without injury, fail to make corresponding judgements. Scylla 
and Charybdis lie in wait of the reader. To accept the pragmatic view 
that "children do work, they must work and they and their families 
benefit from their working" is unacceptable. To make the Charybdis 
judgement—that all child work must be banned—is even more 
unacceptable. Outlawing children's work is not only impractical (it can 
only drive child work and child abuse underground and it is impossible 
to police); if it succeeds, this can only result driving families to death by 
starvation. Trying to avoid the latter stance, the authors appear to fall 
too readily into the former. 
As children comprise over half the world's population they cannot 
be treated as a homogeneous group. Yet in a situation of extreme and 
unexpected hardship the rich exploit the poor and the poor exploit the 
poorer. The poorest and most powerless are children who have at least 
this in common; they are physically smaller than adults, and they are 
dependent, both economically and emotionally, on the adults who raise 
them. I see no problem in recognizing and acknowledging this chain of 
exploitation and relating it, not to individual wickedness but to the 
social and economic circumstances in which we find ourselves. What is 
on the line here is what we mean by exploitation and how far we are 
prepared to make a moral judgement that the ends justify the means. Of 
course families in desperate poverty should survive. Does this justify 
the harsh conditions under which working children often find 
themselves? 
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Readers will find in this interesting collection of essays much food for 
thought about their own attitudes to childhood, children's work and 
child labour, as well as about possible solutions to child labour. The 
book opens out yet another indication of the extent to which social and 
moral values that worked well for earlier generations can no longer help 
families in situations of intolerable poverty; and is yet another tragic 
reminder of the way in which the social fabric can be torn apart by 
societies undergoing massive economic and political change. 
REVIEWED BY CAROLE PEARCE, EDITOR1 
1 The editor hereby welcomes the new publishing company, 
Weaver Press, to the stable of academic publishers in Zimbabwe 
and wishes it well. 
VOL 16 NO 2 JULY 2001 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA 173