Working children and young people
Factors influencing decisions to use child labour: a case study of poor households in rural Badakhshan
Why might rural households in Afghanistan send their children out to work?
Authors:
P. Hunte; A. Hozyainova; C. Bassett (ed)
Publisher:
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit , 2008
This case study is the second in a three-part series examining household decision making on the use of child labour in urban and rural Afghanistan. In contrast to the other two studies in the series, which were conducted in urban areas of Afghanistan, the setting for this research is an isolated village in the northern province of Badakhshan. Through an in-depth analysis of poor rural households, some that send their children to work and others that do not, this case study explores factors beyond poverty in relation to the complex phenomenon of child labour. It seeks to understand the numerous everyday forms of child labour in a village setting, focusing on how rural households compare options and make decisions about which of their children will work and how.
Key findings from the report include:
- economic insecurity, uncertainty about crop yields (due to drought) and the village’s lack of non-farm employment options negatively impact all of the poor households in this study, both those that use child labour and those that do not. This demonstrates that economic insecurity is a necessary but insufficient condition for child labour in the village
- all of the poor households interviewed are in considerable debt. This suggests that indebtedness is also a necessary but insufficient factor in decisions concerning the use of child labour
- the absence, illness or death of a male earner in a poor village household activates the strong local social support system. In some of these cases, women and children must subsequently find work. There are other poor households in which the male earner is present and active, however, that nonetheless use child labour
- the village school is very supportive of households in which children must combine work and schooling; for example, teachers can make special arrangements for short absences and allow students to make up missed work
- children sampled in this study exhibited gender-specific types of work, which allow girls to combine work and schooling where boys cannot. Girls, whose labour is in close proximity to the village, can attend school in the morning and work in the afternoons. In contrast, because boys’ work takes them far into the mountains they cannot combine work and schooling.
