Manufacturing childhood: the lives and livelihoods of children in Dhaka's slums
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2000
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Melbourne Authors
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Key Centre for Women's Health in Society
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PhD thesis
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Bissell, S. L. (2000). Manufacturing childhood: the lives and livelihoods of children in Dhaka's slums. PhD thesis, Key Centre for Women's Health in Society, The University of Melbourne.
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© 2000 Dr. Susan L. Bissell
Abstract
There are a number of myths surrounding the issue of child labour and successful routes to its eradication. Most of them are based on a philosophy about childhood in which children depend on but do not contribute to the family economy, where they attend school full-time, play, and are cared for and nurtured by parents.
My thesis sets out to examine these myths against the lived experience of a group of children in the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh. These children, all former garment workers who lost their jobs at the threat of American trade sanctions, did not meet the standard criteria for childhood — they worked, they attended school for a few hours a day if at all, and many were from single-parent households. Against the standard view of childhood, and the one articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, these children would appear to have ‘lost’ their childhood, or to have had it ‘stolen’ by their ‘unfortunate conditions of life’. On the contrary, in interviews and focus groups the children described their childhood — not the idyllic one prescribed by child labour elimination advocates — but ‘a kind of childhood’ nonetheless.
‘A Kind of Childhood’ is the working title of a documentary film, with ethnographic elements, that was developed in the course of this thesis and is now in production. It explores the life of a boy named Idris, who worked in a garment factory and was fired from his job late in 1993, when American buyers told Bangladeshi factory owners that a new bill had been introduced in the Senate of the United States — a bill to prohibit the import of goods. made whole or in part using child labour. The film follows Idris as he enrolled in school, found other work, continued to support his disabled father and younger brother, and made some important decisions about his future life and livelihood.
As with Idris, schooling is part of childhood in Dhaka's slums. However, as discussed in this thesis, compulsory primary education alone is not a panacea for the elimination of children from the workplace. Even where schools did exist and where there were provisions for partial income substitution when the children lost their jobs in garment factories, there were still barriers to sustained school attendance.
The myth that children's income is insignificant in the context of family is also explored in this thesis. Children were an important part of the livelihood strategies of families in my research, even where there were no unemployed adult family members. More importantly, children were aware of their part in the family economy, and intensely proud of their contributions — pride that was challenged when they were suddenly removed from relatively lucrative though difficult jobs in Bangladesh's thriving garment sector.
Globalisation is a theme common to every chapter of this thesis, and is the focus of its conclusion. The globalisation process that has impinged upon so many aspects of life the world over has not been particularly beneficial for children. In terms of global solutions to the cessation of child labour, there is no doubt, on the basis of my research, that rapid solutions dependent on the threat of trade sanctions are more detrimental than helpful to children. Certainly, they do nothing to ameliorate the challenging conditions of daily life that are an impetus to child work.
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child labour, Bangladesh, children, economic aspects