The strongInvisiblestrong Child Worker in Kenya The Intersection of.pdfVIP

Nordic Journal of African Studies 10(2): 163-175 (2001) The Invisible Child Worker in Kenya: The Intersection of Poverty, Legislation and Culture COLLETTE A. SUDA Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi ABSTRACT Although data on the prevalence and magnitude of child labour are inadequate, the number of children working under intolerable conditions in Kenya is estimated at over 3 million. However, the number of domestic child workers and children working in the informal sector are much more difficult to estimate because child labour in these two sectors is largely invisible. This invisibility is mainly attributed to the privacy of the domestic sector, the ineffectiveness of legislation, inadequate capacity on the part of the labour inspection unit, paucity of data, cultural values and perceptions as well as lack of public awareness. The problem is compounded by the fact that no legal minimum age of employment has been set in either the informal or the domestic sector. In addition, a lot of Kenyans are not aware of the problem of child labour in general and that of domestic child worker in particular. Children’s work as domestic servants is generally regarded as a normal process of child up-bringing and many families and child employers expect children to work and contribute to their families’ income. Poverty is one of the underlying causes of child labour and one that also interacts with other factors in mutually reinforcing and complex ways and thus the need to argue the links and interplay between some of these factors. The way forward in the combat against child labour is through a public-private partnership of all the actors at all levels and