Current Research
Child Labour in Nepal
October 2010 - January 2011
Eowyn Castle
During the past few years a number of IREWOC researchers and UvA students, under Professor Lieten's supervision, have conducted research on child labour in Kathmandu, Nepal. IREWOC researcher Eowyn Castle is now editing a joint-authored publication to compile the research reports previously prepared by Afke de Groot, Marieke Haitsma and Eowyn Castle herself. It is intended to provide evidence based insight into specific sectors of work in which children are engaged. The sectors covered are brick makers, stone crushers, Kalimati Fruit and Vegetable Market workers, porters, tea stall and restaurant workers, candy floss sellers, and street children.
Child Labour in the Netherlands
October 2010 - November 2011
Talinay Strehl
The term child labour mostly conjures images of deprived children working under hazardous conditions in poor countries, e.g. in sweatshops, on the streets, in brick kilns or as domestic workers. However, many young children in the Netherlands are also engaged in paid employment, in addition to their compulsory full-time education. In November 2010 IREWOC researcher Talinay Strehl commenced a new research project on work among teenagers in the Netherlands.
The project will involve qualitative and quantitative research to explore the extent and character of paid and unpaid work among school children aged 12-15 years old. Through a child-centred approach we will attempt to reveal the working experiences of children on our own soil. The project is being financed by Stichting Utopa.
Young Child Rights Advocates
Talinay Strehl
In cooperation with our partner in the Dutch Child Rights House, ICDI (International Child Development Initiatives, www.icdi.nl), IREWOC is initiating the Young Child Rights Advocates project. For this project seven young child rights advocates, aged between 18 and 25 years old and living in economically, politically and socially deprived environments, will be selected and invited for a week’s visit to the Netherlands in May 2011. The candidates are expected to have a clear history of defending the rights of themselves and other children in their neighbourhoods or countries. During the visit they will attend a 2-day seminar in project management and child rights, develop a solid project proposal, generate media attention for the issues they are fighting for, meet other youngsters, policy makers and experts in the field of child rights, and last but not least, enjoy the attractions that the Netherlands has to offer. After returning home, funds will be made available to the young advocates to implement and manage their projects and with this improve the child rights of children around them. The aim of this project is to unite young heroes and to give them the chance to extend their networks, learn from each other and experts, validate their work and efforts, cross borders and overcome barriers. This way, children from economically, politically or socially deprived areas of the world will be given the possibility to voice their problems and a platform to promote their ideals.
Violence Against Girls in Kenya
August 2009 - July 2011
Ratan Khasnabis, Sharmistha Banerjee, Nanna Baum, Kristoffel Lieten
In February, the Dutch Minister for Development Aid gave the go ahead for the project “Fighting Violence to Ensure Education for All". IREWOC is taking part in this project, in alliance with DCI/ECPAT, International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI), Child Helpline International, Plan Nederland and Plan Kenya.
Worldwide, there are still at least 75 million children out of school and those who do attend school often drop out before successfully finishing primary education. One of the reasons for not attending school is violence: violence at home, violence at school and violence at work. Violence is destructive to the child’s proper development and to the protective functioning of the family in general.
Starting in August 2009, and lasting for a period of 3 years, a sector-wide program will start, aimed at children between 7 and 15 years, their parents, teachers, counsellors and community leaders in the poorest communities in the capital Nairobi (Nairobi West, East and North) and in the Kwale coastal districts (Kwale, Kinango and Msambweni) of Kenya. This sector-wide approach is based on the recommendations made by the UN Special Representative, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, in his UN Study on violence against children.
IREWOC’s responsibility shall consist of conducting benchmark research at the start and mid-point of the project, as well as the impact study. The supporting research will provide valid data on the child-(un)friendliness in two of the basic child-oriented institutions (the family and the school) and on the (changing) attitudes that people have regarding violence towards children. It will also stimulate sector-wide cooperation between state-actors and non-state actors in Kenya, evaluating best practice experiences and recommending practices on the basis of ethnographic insights in family life, school life and community norms and values.
The aim of the IREWOC research on violence against children in Kenya is threefold:
1. To provide relevant ethnographic data on the open and hidden lives of children.
2. To study the specific incidence of violence in the various domains and to subsequently study the changes brought about by the intervention.
3. To train local researchers in research techniques and research sensitivities and build a local reservoir of knowledge.
A kick-off meeting in which the details of the project and the cooperation between the different partners were agreed upon, took place in Kwale district in mid-April 2009. [Read the report here]