Child Labor Exploitation or Child Socialization? Observations from an Action Research Combating Child Domestic Servitude

• In Event: 477 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Children, Youth, and Violence 1

Abstract

This article focuses on child labor exploitation and complements existing scholarship affirming the relevance and applicability of sociological research to policy and solutions to social problems. It outlines the interplay of research employing the approaches of phenomenology and grounded theory and the implementation of activities aimed at combating human trafficking with specific emphasis on child domestic servitude. It identifies some of the factors debilitating against efforts to fight child labor exploitation as the denial amongst urban elite that the problem exists and a disconnection between cultural practices and efforts, including laws geared towards the fight. Public officials, legislators, university professors, and prominent advocates of human rights were some of the persons who argued against the framework of child domestic servitude conceptualized in this study. They argued this was an attempt to adulterate a mainstream Ghanaian cultural component of socialization, but such child servants worked long hours a day, and if enrolled in schools, were usually late and had little to no time for after school studies; they were required to work before and after school. It appears such officials defended the practice as culturally beneficial in so far as their children were not the victims, the violations of their basic rights as stipulated in the laws of Ghana notwithstanding. Data were primarily qualitative and collected at various stages of the project to evaluate progress and determine the structure, direction, and any necessary modifications to the strategies of the project.

Author

• C. Nana Derby, Virginia State University