The Commercialization Of Childhood

by Anthony Pringle

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The HIV/AIDS tide sweeping through Africa is changing many people’s lives in a variety of different ways. But one group perhaps most seriously impacted by this epidemic is Africa’s children. HIV & AIDS have redrawn the lines of childhood, which now takes on a very different meaning for many. Child labour is escalating with its most disturbing manifestation being an increase in child prostitution (1). In order to identify how children’s lives are changing I will draw an analogy between the historical roots of ‘childhood’ in the Victorian period of Britain and the role of children in Zimbabwe today. Following this I will outline how work replaces play for many Zimbabwean children and the main concerns surrounding this issue. In conclusion I will offer my thoughts on the future of ‘childhood’ in Zimbabwe.

Ideally, childhood should be an effervescent carefree time of our life, a time of awe, discovery and learning, as described by the actress Elizabeth Lawrence

“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colours are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again” (2). Elizabeth Lawrence

This pervasive view of a ‘playful childhood’ was not always the dominant view during the Victorian era in Europe. The shift in the global views on ‘childhood’ came about in the Victorian era primarily because of the coincidence of rapid and widespread industrialisation. The rapid expansion of industrialisation brought with it a myriad of new machinery, which needed repair and maintenance. Children were ideally suited to work in these conditions and were thus engaged in hazardous work practices such as maintaining mineshafts, cotton spinning machines and chimney sweeps (3). Victorian literature, most notably that by the English author Charles Dickens, is replete with examples of children being subjected to hard labour from very early ages. Whilst child labour has always existed (4) it increased significantly in its dangers and hardship during this period.

The historian E.P Thompson notes that

“…there was a drastic increase in the intensity of exploitation of child labour between 1780 and 1840, and every historian acquainted with the sources knows this is so. This was true in the mines, both in inefficient small-scale pits where the roadways were sometimes so narrow that children could not easily pass through them; where – as the coal face drew further away from the shaft – children were in demand as ‘hurreyers’ and to operate the ventilation ports. In the mills, the child and juvenile labour force grew yearly; and in several of the out-worker or ‘dishonourable’ trades the hours of labour became longer and work more intense” (5).

Whilst industrialisation spelt increased hardship and dangers for children in the form of child labour it also ironically held the recipe for the demise of the practices of child labour. With rapid and widespread industrialisation came increased wealth and the establishment of a middle class throughout Britain. Middle class perceptions of an ideal childhood resulted in certain work practices being deemed as hazardous and unnecessary risks for children. The Child Labour Acts which were adopted in 1833 (6) led to the gradual phasing out of the use of children in industrial and agricultural labour:

• Young people (ages 13-18) could not work more than 12 hours, and were entitled to one and a half hours for meals.

• Children (ages 9-13) could not work more than 9 hours.

• Children and Young people could not work at night

The limitation of child labour promulgated in Britain had a domino effect among countries with similar economic and democratic conditions, most notably the United States (7). As such children were no longer viewed as a resource with a potential earning capacity. Instead, children became dependents that had to be provided for with, for example, money for education, clothing and health. Whilst the emergent middle class’ social conditions played an important role in facilitating this change, the gradual emergence of the welfare state was also a significant factor. The welfare state relieved some of the more disadvantaged and vulnerable sectors of society who had previously relied on children for the supplementation of household income (8). This confluence of social and economic change brought about a remarkable reconstruction of childhood. The concept of ‘childhood innocence’ (toys, mass schooling which facilitated discovery & learning) (9) replaced the concept that had become pervasive during the industrialization period. As such the carefree idea of ‘childhood’ became the globally pervasive concept with the dissemination of key values around the world culminating in the International Convention of the Rights of the Child, which entered into international law on the 2nd of September 1990 (10).

The impact of the escalating global HIV/AIDS crisis is having a harrowing effect on childhood. Because of deteriorating social and economic conditions in Zimbabwe, ‘childhood’ has inadvertently regressed into the ‘child as economic performer’. The majority of people who are contracting HIV/AIDS are most often the economically active sectors of the population. In Zimbabwe currently 20.5% (11) of the economically active population have contracted HIV. What this means for many families, is lost income, as HIV/AIDS cripples peoples capacity to work. In Zimbabwe 39.7% of the population is under the age of 14 and 3.5% is over the age 65 (12). These people are the least capable of performing most forms of economically beneficial work. The current HIV and AIDS epidemic is changing this. As parents contract HIV and are unable to work this fuels the depletion of a labour source and therefore the responsibility of sustaining families through work falls to people who were otherwise incapable or unexpected to work. Often this obligation falls to the children who are forced to turn to agriculture, industrial work, prostitution or any other employment that may be available regardless of risks, in order to provide for the family. Research carried out by Global March (13) in 2000 indicated that in Zimbabwe there were 427,000 children between the ages of 10-14 who are economically active, of which 187,000 are girls and 240,000 boys (14).

The General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe in March 2006, noted that Zimbabwe’s agricultural workforce has increasingly been comprised of children (15), taking them out of other important child appropriate activities such as schooling. As standards of living in Zimbabwe continue to deteriorate the use of child labour on farms has risen sharply, with over 10,000 children estimated to be working in the agricultural sector (16). The Zimbabwean Commercial Agriculture – Trade Unions stated that in the agricultural sector, children were picking cotton, removing insects from tobacco leaves, loading and off-loading tobacco, spraying pesticides, herding animals and also doing household work (17).

In ever-desperate circumstances, with help coming from few sources, children are increasingly prone to physical and mental abuse. In a UNICEF publication (18) a ten-year-old raised an issue that more and more Zimbabwean children are experiencing (19).

“I once had a friend called Nerissa,” says Mitchell softly. “She used to come to school with bruises all over her body. She didn’t want to tell me her problem. I later found out that her uncle used to beat her every day. He used to tell her that he was not the one who killed her parents and that he had no money to feed her…things like this happen to children everyday.”

Physical abuse, including abuse in the form of prostitution is having adverse mental effects on children, often shattering a child’s well being and more importantly, exposing the children to Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), including HIV. According to recent UNICEF figures there are currently 120,000 Zimbabwean children under the age of 15 who are infected with HIV (20). There is a high probability that a significant number of the infections have resulted from prostitution.

With poor formal networks of support being provided by the Zimbabwean government it is not surprising that educational goals for children as set out by the Zimbabwean government are not being met. According to UNICEF statistics for the period 1996 to 2004, only 44% of boys and 42% of girls registered in secondary school actually attended classes. Many parents said that their children have to drop out of school to help support the family (21). As such, education relating to sex is suffering and so is the comprehension of the associated risks of prostitution. The informal support networks for children who are orphaned or suffering as a result of HIV/AIDS are transient at best. These informal support networks are often based on a communal foster parent system.

Often HIV infected parents send their children off to other relatives to look after them. Considering the unemployment rates and scarcity of hard currency it is difficult for anyone to take on this extra burden, so there is an immediate rush to supplement the family income by forcing the “adopted” children to work.

Zimbabwe is thus seeing the re-defining of childhood norms, along the antiquated lines of the child labour ideas of pre-Victorian England. This time around however, child labour is occurring out of necessity as HIV/AIDS depletes Zimbabwe’s adult labour force. Children, who previously were not viewed as economic earners are now being forced to cross into adult worlds early on in their lives. Young children graduate into adulthood faster by engaging in activities normally reserved for adults, namely labour, sexual activities and serving as heads of households. Childhood innocence in the form of schoolyard play, discovery and learning has disappeared for the many children affected by HIV/AIDS.

The future of Zimbabwe’s children remains bleak. Helen Jackson, Director of Southern Africa AIDS information Dissemination Service (SafAIDS) predicts that “By 2010 the epidemic will have reached an infection ratio of one in every three children” (22). Thus it is imperative that when addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS we remember to look at the more vulnerable sectors of society, the children. Let us help them regain their childhood innocence. We must listen to their cries and give them a voice.

Bibliography:

(1). International Labour Organisation (ILO) Report : Child Labour: Targeting the Intolerable.
This report stated that although it is difficult to quantify the increase in child prostitution “Zimbabwe [is ] faced with rising child prostitution.”

(2). Lawrence, Elizabeth, (Actress).

(3). Encyclopedia of Britannica Online: Children were suitable for a number of reasons. They were a source of cheap labour but also owing to their small size they could crawl through and thus maintain many machines which were often too confined for adults to fit through.

(4). The practice of putting children to work was first documented in the medieval era when children spun thread for them to weave on the loom. Child Labour During the Industrial Revolution.

(5). Thompson, E.P: The Making of the English Working Classes: 1963 Penguin Books.

(6). Wikipedia.org: Factory Acts.

(7). Wikipedia.org: Children’s Rights Organisation.

(8). Thompson, E.P. The making of the English Working Classes : 1963 Penguin books. The Welfare state began to provide financial support to people who were deemed as ‘economically vulnerable’ meaning that they did not earn enough to support their family.

(9). BBC : British Timeline; Victorians.
Schooling for all children became a legal obligation under the 1870 Education Act.

(10). UNHCR: U.N General Assembly entered into force on 2 September 1990.

(11). Guardian Online: Dramatic fall in Zimbabwe HIV Infections 2005.

(12). FAO: Statistics Division.

(13). Global March Against Child Labour.

(14). International Labour Organisation (ILO): ILO, International Labour Office – Bureau of
Statistics, Economically Active Population 1950-2010, STAT Working Paper, 1997

(15). All Africa: Farmers using Child Labour on A2 Farms.

(16). IRIN-Zimbabwe: Child Labour on Farms must be Stopped, say Unions.

(17). International Labour Organisation (ILO): Child Labour in Commercial Agriculture in Africa.

(18). UNICEF: Girls’ Education and Empowerment in Zimbabwe.

(19). UNICEF: Country Statistics.

(20). UNICEF: Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS. This is the total number of children under the age of 15 who have contracted HIV whether through ‘Mother to Child’ or post birth infection

(21). IRIN Africa-Zimbabwe: Fees Hike Likely to force more children out of school.

(22). Inter Press Service: Zimbabwe Children: Those the Anti-AIDS campaigners forget.