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Paper short abstract

Short Abstract This study examines child weavers in Addis Ababa, highlighting how poverty and unsafe work affect health, schooling, and wellbeing, while showing children’s resilience, agency, and aspirations amid structural violence in Ethiopia’s informal economy.

Paper long abstract

Children’s work in Ethiopia’s informal economy is often framed through depoliticized narratives that obscure the structural forces shaping their lives. Widespread poverty, limited social protection, and urban inequality push children into hazardous labour, reproducing everyday forms of violence that shape childhoods across Global Africa. This study adopts a child-centred, contextually grounded approach to explore the experiences of child weavers in Addis Ababa, focusing on the intersections of work, health, and education.

Using semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and direct observation, the study documents the realities of children, some starting work as young as eight. Long hours, unsafe conditions, and physical strain compromise school attendance, learning, and wellbeing. Common health issues include musculoskeletal pain, headaches, respiratory problems, skin conditions, and psychosocial stress. Economic pressures force many children to juggle work and schooling or drop out, limiting mobility and future opportunities.

Rather than portraying children solely as victims, the study highlights their agency: navigating economic precarity, negotiating family roles, and expressing aspirations for education and stability despite structural violence. Poverty emerges as the main driver, yet children also demonstrate resilience and coping strategies that challenge dominant, Eurocentric assumptions about childhood.

By situating child labour within broader systems of inequality, this research contributes to debates on decolonial, child-centred approaches in development. It underscores the importance of integrated interventions addressing poverty, education, health, and participatory engagement with children’s perspectives.