Working children’s resistance to age discrimination. Reflections on adultism, temporality and child status.

Abstract

Working children are not only discriminated against because they are still children, but also because they live in a way that is not foreseen in the prevailing pattern of childhood from the Global North: they work. Their discrimination is expressed, among other things, by the fact that their work is not recognised and that they are more economically exploited than adults, as well as by the fact that they are denied labour rights and participation in all matters that affect them as working children. To counteract their discrimination, the paper argues for rethinking childhoods as well as work. In this context, he refers to the concept of adultism as a fundamental feature of a society in which adults determine how young people should live and in which children are prevented from participating in a meaningful way. The paper explores the forms of discrimination against working children and describes the specific ways in which they experience and resist it.