Phase 2

After the first phase, there was a two-month hiatus to allow the researcher to fulfil her PhD teaching duties at the University of Surrey. During this time, the researcher interviewed officials at the UK branch of Afrikids to find out more about the completed ILO-funded Operation Sunlight programme in the Talensi-Nabdam District in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Afrikids, as an implementation partner of the ILO, aimed to remove 150 children from mine sites in Talensi-Nabdam and push them into full-time education or vocational training. This discussion elicited important perspectives on the ILO’s role in eliminating child labour and helped to pinpoint some important implementation issues.

When the researcher returned to Ghana in May 2015, the first few weeks were used to gain access to three different communities (Bonsawire, Kedadwen and Nsuaem) and arrange meetings with Ghana-based NGOs that worked with mining communities. Interviewing commenced in June and July 2015 in both Accra and Tarkwa.

Table 3.4 Sample of research participants at the grassroots level

Parents/ Guardians Children / Youth (Age) Headteachers/ Teachers Community Chief Total 5-17 18-21 Bonsawire 4 15 0 7 1 27 Kedadwen 7 11 2 4 1 25 Nsuaem 6 5 1 2 1 15 Total 17 31 3 13 3 67

The researcher purposely selected children who are between 5 and 17 years old because Article 91(1) of the Ghana Children’s Act 1998 – in line with the contents of C182 – states that ‘[t]he minimum age for the engagement of a person in hazardous work is eighteen years’.27 Moreover, free compulsory universal basic education (FCUBE) at the time the research was undertaken28 was accessible for children between the ages of 4 and 15 years, covering specifically three years

27 _{‘The Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560)’}

http://www.unesco.org/education/edurights/media/docs/f7a7a002205e07fbf119bc00c8bd3208a438b37f.pdf (Accessed 14 December 2018)

28 _{The newly elected president Nana Akufo Addo announced in September 2017 that the FCUBE policy will}

107

of pre-school (kindergarten), six years of primary school and three years of junior secondary school (JSS). In response to Objective 4 of this research (‘to provide a more nuanced understanding of the impact children’s work in ASM communities (both onsite and offsite) has on children’s (both girls’ and boys’) educations’), it was important to speak with children who were both engaged in ASM and still obligated under the national law to be enrolled in full-time education.

While children above 15 years old were technically out of the compulsory education stage, due to grade repetition and late school enrolment, many boys and girls finished JSS much later. This is a well-known phenomenon, which explains why large-scale studies conducted by donor organisations include a net enrolment rate which specifies that the numbers presented are based on the age group which is meant to be enrolled at that level. The decision to include two 18- year-olds in the study was guided by the fact that they had been engaged in ASM activities for over two years and were still able to reflect on their experience as ‘child labourers’. The research participant who was 21 years old at the time this research was conducted was also interviewed because she informed the researcher that she was 17 years old. It was later discovered, during an interview with others from her household that due to losing the birth registration card and ger illiteracy, her mother was unable to give an exact date of birth. Her older sister then estimated her to be 21 years old based on the sibling birth order.

Local leaders were identified based on their availability; it was common for chiefs to travel for weeks at a time. However, having initiated contact with some of the teachers during community visits, they were able to notify the researcher when the corresponding community leader had returned to the village. For schools, only one of the three communities visited had a population exceeding 2000 people, which meant that there was a limited amount of government-funded public schools to initiate contact with. Primary schools were generally the first point of call upon entering a community because in these rural settings, teachers are uniquely positioned to communicate effectively without a translator. Teachers also live nearby meaning they are in

108

direct contact with the community regularly and are privy to crucial information such as the leadership structure, which is needed to deduce who must be contacted to gain access to the community (after Bulmer, 1993).

An opportunity to attend the launch of the Human Rights Watch report, Precious Metal, Cheap Labor: Child Labor and Corporate Responsibility in Ghana’s Artisanal Gold Mines in early June 2015 presented the perfect opportunity to return to Accra briefly and meet with representatives from organisations, representatives from which had been slow to respond to email requests to arrange a meeting. These included Free the Slaves and the Ghana NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child (GNCRC). Shortly after this, another interview was conducted with an official from Friends of the Nation, an NGO based in Takoradi that has worked extensively on child labour in the fisheries industry and in the past five years, ASM. The three Ghana-based NGOs provided great insight on how they have been addressing child labour and also explained the sociocultural relevance of children’s work in rural communities and coastal towns.

Having selected the communities, visiting the mine sites on two consecutive days in the weekday and on the weekend allowed the researcher to develop an understanding of the ASM operator profiles. All interviews were conducted in the communities to avoid disturbing people at work and risk them losing a portion of their income. The only people who were interviewed at their place of work were hot food sellers and petty traders because they usually had an assistant who could relieve them of their duties for 40-60 minutes. All interviews were restricted to an hour in respect of people’s personal time and avoid drawing attention from neighbours: the average time was around 40-45 minutes.

The opinions of children, their parents and educators were surveyed in order to access a broader perspective on the issue of child labour in African ASM communities; this was done through semi-structured interviews. Langevang (2007), who has experience researching young people in Ghana, discovered that ‘the formal interview scheme was of little use in eliciting young people’s

109

experience and…western assumptions of young people’s lives…inhibited their ability to communicate their experiences’ (p. 270). Creating an environment that empowers children to share their experiences not only acknowledges their agency as social actors, but also minimises the impact of power relationships that exist due to the researcher’s status as an outsider and an educated adult. It also facilitates the establishment of trust and rapport, two necessary aspects of working with children (van Blerk, 2006; Scheyvens et. al, 2003).

Conversations with the affected households were able to give an indication of their economic circumstances, to map the activities being undertaken by children and to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the nature of the work being carried out – specifically, to offer some insight on whether it is more representative of 'light work' or 'exploitative child labour' and why. Furthermore, they offered a perspective on how children's work affects the welfare of diversified families (those engaged in both ASM and farming) in the short term, and the extent to which, over the long term, this work affects the development of young boys and girls. The discussions helped to build on the knowledge of household assets, shed some light on what drove households to supply child labour, and provided some clarification on whether parents across sub-Saharan Africa encourage their children to engage in arduous work at mines as opposed to going to school, as the ILO and its implementation partners claim. Moreover, it allowed the researcher to deduce how relevant the ‘family-economy-argument’ was in explaining the child labour phenomenon as it applies to the region’s ASM sector.

In line with Objective 4, these discussions helped to capture the importance attached to education in mining communities, to get a clearer picture of the available education resources, and to understand how the economic pressures exerted on children affects access to education. This could go a long way toward identifying ways international and national actors can, through universal education, break the child labour-ASM axis – a more elaborate picture is presented in Chapter 7 (Figure 7.1). This is also particularly relevant to Sustainable Development Goal

110

(SDG) 4, which calls for UN Member States to commit to ‘ensur[ing] inclusive and equitable quality education and promot[ing] lifelong learning opportunities for all’.29

Finally, through consultations with affected families, the researcher was able to determine the extent to which child labour in subsistence farming and ASM in sub-Saharan was a function of cultural practices. Emerging bodies of literature (Bass, 2004; Ekpe-Otu, 2009; Agbu, 2009; Imoh, 2012a) have implied that there is no clear dichotomy between childhood and adulthood in

traditional sub-Saharan African cultures. The ‘childhood’ stage in these contexts is considered to be a preparation period for adult responsibilities.

Interviews, that is analysis, concept refinement and selection of further research participants, were repeated until ‘theoretical saturation’ was reached. In other words, at the point when further interviews were no longer nuancing concepts or linkages between them (Strauss and Corbin 1998; Kvale 2007), interviewing was concluded. Since the aim is to understand commonalities between homogeneous groups, it was expected that 25-30 interviews with adults and children would suffice before data saturation was reached (Corbin and Strauss, 1998). Nsuaem was the last community the researcher gained access to, which explains why there were fewer interviewees here. After the 15th interview, it was clear that data saturation had been reached and therefore, interviewing ceased.