Child Domestic Workers in Zimbabwe

In the context of AIDS and a declining economy, one strategy for children to ensure their own livelihood is to engage in domestic employment. Here, Michael Bourdillon presents the findings of research based on interviews and discussions with child domestic workers in Zimbabwe. It looks at the circumstances that pushed them into employment, the hardships and humiliations they face therein, as well as the benefits they derive, including, in some cases, education. Most children wanted improvements in their living and working conditions. They did not want to be stopped from working, perceiving that this would worsen their already harsh lives. While child domestic wok is problematic, and often lays children open to various types of abuse, it can also offer critical support and patronage to very disadvantaged children.

Beyond Benign Neglect

Early Childhood Care, Development and Nutrition in Metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria

The research and action programme titled Positive Deviance in Nutrition and Child Development has been sponsored through the Tufts University School of Nutrition by UNICEF New York and the Joint Nutrition Support Programme of the Italian Government and was carried out in three countries – Nicaragua, Indonesia, and Nigeria – over a period of four years. In each country, the project had three phases. Phase I was made up of field research. Phase II involved design of action programmes and materials based on the results of Phase I, while Phase III implemented the programmes designed by Phase II. The Nigerian collaborative project, entitled Child Development for the Computer Age, focusing on preschool children, was conducted in Lagos and Ogun States by the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos in conjunction with Tufts and as part of UNICEF’s Child Development Project in Nigeria.

This text presents results of the cross-sectional survey, ethnographic study and psychological testing conducted during Phase I of the Nigerian project. Concerned with the general theme of positive deviance in child development, it focused on early childhood education and development, nutritional practices and values, child-rearing values and practices and the role and place of the social and cultural context in determining outcomes related to these variables. The study’s engagement with the problem and process of transition (in the case of Nigeria, often partial or/and blocked transition) in social values, norms, institutions and practices around child development, early childhood education, nutrition and family relations have implications for work in gender relations, family, citizenship, HIV/AIDS, food security and adoption of, and adaptation to, new technologies and knowledge systems. The recognition of the relevance and currency of these issues informed this publication.

An Assessment of Services Provided to Children Affected and Infected by HIV/AIDS in Windhoek, Namibia

It is well known that HIV/AIDS has grave implications for children beyond infection: orphans, trauma and disruption of lifestyle, poverty, stigmatisation and abuse being just some of the consequences. UNICEF and UNAIDS have identified this situation as the most significant issue facing children today. During the time when the impact of the HIV pandemic on children, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, was becoming well known, research into early childhood development was gaining global recognition.

This study is supported by the World Forum Foundation, the University of Namibia and the Centre for Social Justice and Social Change of the University of Western Sydney. It represents a first step to corroborate research into HIV/AIDS with current knowledge about the outcome of experiences during early life, in the Namibian context. Using quantitative and qualitative data, the study provides an insight into what it means to be young, orphaned, infected or affected in other ways by HIV/AIDS.

It draws conclusions about the ways in which global principles of healthy environments and quality settings for children are being, and can be met, in the current conditions.

Annotated Bibliography on Childhood with Emphasis on Africa

There are few works emanating from Africa, which may be construed as child studies, and even fewer reference works on this subject. There can be little dispute however, that issues such as child labour, child soldiers, and the disaffection of youth in Africa must be considered from context-specific and local perspectives, as well as from ‘universal’ or standardised positions. Hence the value of this text, a concise annotated bibliography, which is constructed from literature on children and childhood, from or about Africa, published between 1995 and 2000. The bibliography presents the major works from the anthropological, sociological and psychological literatures pertaining to child studies, extracts from the political sciences and economics, and key theoretical texts from other parts of the world.

King of Children

This is the tragic story of Janusz Korczak, who chose to perish in Treblinka rather than abandon the Jewish orphans in his care. Korczak comes alive in this acclaimed biography by Betty Jean Lifton as the first known advocate of children’s rights in Poland, and the man known as a savior of hundreds of orphans in the Warsaw ghetto. A pediatrician, educator, and Polish Jew, Janusz Korczak introduced progressive orphanages, serving both Jewish and Catholic children, in Warsaw. Determined to shield children from the injustices of the adult world, he built orphanages into ‘just communities’ complete with parliaments and courts. Korczak also founded the first national children’s newspaper, testified on behalf of children in juvenile courts, and, through his writings, provided teachers and parents with a moral education. Known throughout Europe as a Pied Piper of destitute children prior to the onslaught of World War II, he assumed legendary status when on August 6, 1942, after refusing offers for his own safety, he defiantly led the orphans under his care in the Warsaw Ghetto to the trains that would take them to Treblinka. Introductions by Elie Wiesel, Curren Warf and Allison A. Eddy

Helping Troubled Children

Presents an overview of the treatment of common emotional and behavioral problems in childhood, focusing on the psychiatric difficulties of the ordinary child rather than on the psychoses and more severe disorders that are usually treated with hospital inpatient care. Topics include individual differences in development; the effects of families, communities, schools, and peer groups; and such problems as hyperactivity, aggression, delinquency, underachievement, and learning inhibitions.

The Handbook of Childhood Studies

A landmark publication in the field, this state of the art reference work, with contributions from leading thinkers across a range of disciplines, is an essential guide to the study of children and childhood, and sets out future research agendas for the subject.

Children’s Agency and Development in African Societies

This book focuses on African childhood and youth within the context of development and socialization where children are expected to be moulded in the image of adults. In many African societies children are generally held as passive bearers of the demands of adults, regardless of the fact that they are often exposed to a multitude of challenges that originate from the capriciousness of those adults. However, buoyed by international conventions and national legislations that offer them greater protection, and the ubiquitous internet that exposes them to childhood and youth experiences elsewhere, many of them are increasingly becoming assertive in homes, schools, and communities as well as re-invigorating their survival and self-preservation instincts. It is in this regard that this book, through the various chapters, engages with their competencies, skills and creativity to respond to experiential challenges as independent migrants or ones under coercion working in city streets and markets or cocoa farms or juggling work and schooling in pursuit of some education. Confronted with their parents’ and siblings’ health predicaments and the inadequacies of state and familial care, or urgent negotiation of their sexualities, they demonstrate incredible resilience. Similarly, their perceptiveness is demonstrated in a unique appreciation of politics and its actors and a capacity to assume responsibilities beyond their chronological age. Thus while highlighting some of the challenges confronting African children, the book provides gripping evidence of how they resiliently negotiate those challenges.

The Concept of Human Rights in Africa

Hitherto the human rights debate in Africa has concentrated on the legal and philosophical. The author, Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, here moves the debate to the social and political planes. He attempts to reconceptualise human rights ideology from the standpoint of the working people in Africa. He defines the approach as avoiding the pitfalls of the liberal perspective as being absolutist in viewing human rights as a central question and the rights struggle as the backbone of democratic struggles. The author maintains that such a study cannot be politically neutral or intellectually uncommitted. Both the critique of dominant discourse and the reconceptualisation are located within the current social science and jurisprudential debates.

International Law

International Law provides a lucid and comprehensive exposition of the basic precepts necessary for understanding the international legal process, while presenting a general, integrated overview of contemporary international law. The text is presented in a user-friendly/ accessible style, providing an ideal concise overview that offers sufficient detail for the work to be adopted as a core text.

This text should be regarded as an essential purchase for students following courses in International Law as it continues to map current undergraduate course syllabi and also incorporates discussion of issues studied as part of International-related LLMs. International Law is also a key reference tool for non-law students following courses in subject areas such as International Politics, International Relations, Human Rights etc, as well as for academics and practitioners requiring a concise overview of current developments.