Paper short abstract:

Implementing the ILO minimum age policy, children have been legally banned from work in commercial agricultural estates in Malawi since the early 2000s. This paper interrogates the mixed impacts of child labour bans through the lived experiences of communities in rural southern Malawi.

Paper long abstract:

Despite implementing the International Labour Organisation’s minimum age policy, legally banning children from work in commercial agricultural estates in Malawi since the early 2000s, the Malawi state continues to fail to protect the basic rights of the nation’s children. Many children remain engaged in harmful work (including on estates), with pitiful educational attainment and food insecure. This paper interrogates the mixed impacts of child labour bans on children’s rights to work, education and freedom from hunger. Analysis of qualitative and quantitative evidence of lived experiences gathered from children, their families and community leaders in the tea and tobacco growing communities of rural southern Malawi reveals widespread corruption in government social programmes intended to support poor households and protect children from engaging in exploitative and risky work. We interrogate links between household food insecurity and children’s need to work for their survival. Facing the future, disillusionment with the moral, economic and political failure of the Malawi state towards its youngest citizens - the future heart of the nation - mean state interventions aimed at ending child labour must be transformed to put children’s rights and resilience building at the centre.