Children and Migration: At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability

At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability Edited by Marisa O. Ensor and Elżbieta M. Goździak 10.1057/97802302...

Author: Marisa O. Ensor | Elzbieta Gozdziak

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At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability Edited by

Marisa O. Ensor and

Elżbieta M. Goździak

10.1057/9780230297098 - Children and Migration, Edited by Marisa O. Ensor and Elzbieta M. Gozdziak

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromsoe - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-08

Children and Migration




Also by Marisa O. Ensor

˙ Also by Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak BEYOND THE GATEWAY: Immigrants in a Changing America (co-edited) DATA AND RESEARCH ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING: A Global Survey (co-edited) NEW IMMIGRANTS, CHANGING COMMUNITIES: Best Practice for a Better America (co-author) RETHINKING REFUGE AND DISPLACEMENT: Selected Papers of Refugees and Immigrants (co-edited)



THE LEGACY OF HURRICANE MITCH: Lessons from Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Honduras (edited)


Edited by

Marisa O. Ensor American University in Cairo, Egypt

and

˙ Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak Georgetown University, USA



At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability

Selection and editorial matter © Marisa O. Ensor and El˙zbieta M. Go´zdziak 2010 Individual chapters © their respective authors 2010

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–27253–8 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne



All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

List of Figures and Tables

vii

Acknowledgments

viii

About the Contributors

ix

Introduction: Migrant Children at the Crossroads ˙ Marisa O. Ensor and Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak

1

Part I Understanding Migrant Children: Research, Voice, and Representation 1 Understanding Migrant Children: Conceptualizations, Approaches, and Issues Marisa O. Ensor

15

2 Migrant Children in Haiti: Domestic Labor and the Politics of Representation Diane M. Hoffman

36

3 At the Crossroads of Childhood, Media, and Migration Liesbeth de Block and David Buckingham

54

Part II Reviewing Policies: Taking Responsibility for the Rights of Migrant Children 4 The Production of Criminal Migrant Children: Surveillance, Detention, and Deportation in France Susan J. Terrio 5 Protecting the Rights of Internally Displaced Children Elizabeth G. Ferris 6 Without Face or Future: Stateless Infants, Children, and Youth Maureen Lynch

79

97

117

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Contents

vi Contents

Part III Rethinking Practices: Creating Spaces for Agency

8 In the Best Interest of the Child: Perceptions, Responses, and Challenges in Providing Assistance to Trafficked Children in the United States ˙ Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak 9 Social Mobility in Children’s Mobility? An Investigation into Child Circulation among the Maasai of Kenya Caroline Archambault and Joost de Laat

143

166

187

Part IV Searching for New Opportunities: Working and Learning in a New Land 10 Migrating with Honor: Sites of Agency and Power in Child Labor Migration in Bangladesh Karin Heissler 11 Transnational Students’ Perspectives on Schooling in the United States and Mexico: The Salience of School Experience and Country of Birth Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, and Juan Sánchez García 12 Children of Migrant Heritage and Equality of Opportunity in France Leslie J. Limage

209

230

253

The Way Forward: Conclusions and Recommendations ˙ Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak and Marisa O. Ensor

274

Index

281



7 Unaccompanied Minors at the Crossroads in British Columbia: Migration and Trafficking Robin E. Pike and Cynthia C. L. Field

Figures 7.1 Unaccompanied minor arrivals by mode of transportation 7.2 UM arrivals by type of entry 7.3 Legal entry 7.4 UM type of unauthorized entry 7.5 UM arrivals by gender 7.6 Trafficked children by year of arrival 7.7 Trafficked children by mode of transportation 7.8 Patterns of trafficked children by gender

151 151 152 153 153 155 156 157

Tables 7.1 7.2 7.3 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5

Unaccompanied minor arrivals by year Unaccompanied minor arrivals by country of origin Trafficked children by country of origin School aspirations Self-described quality of school marks How would you compare US schools to Mexican ones? How are Mexican students treated in US schools? How do your classmates with US school experience speak Spanish? 11.6 Have you ever repeated a grade?

150 150 155 234 234 235 235 236 236

vii



List of Figures and Tables

This volume would not have been possible without the support and collaboration of great many people. Our heartfelt appreciation goes to the authors who have contributed their research on children on the move to make this book a reality. It has been a pleasure working with each and every one of them. We are particularly grateful to Philippa Grand, our editor at Palgrave, and her team for their enthusiastic support of this project. We are also indebted to the anonymous reviewers who critically evaluated our book proposal and provided invaluable advice to strengthen the volume. We are also deeply indebted to Jill Floyd, a graduate research assistant at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University, for her editorial assistance. Without her exceptional command of the English language, attention to detail, and good humor, the task of copy editing and formatting this volume would have been daunting indeed. Various sources provided material support that enabled us to complete this project. They include the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Macarthur Foundation, and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). We also want to thank each other! The distance between Washington, DC and Cairo, Egypt, notwithstanding, the production of this volume was an intimate intellectual endeavor and a rewarding experience. We are already planning our next collaboration. Finally, we wish to express our admiration for all the migrant children whose experiences of displacement and coping, tribulations and triumphs have inspired our work over the years. For their brave determination in the face of often formidable challenges, and their generosity in sharing their stories, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts! ¡gracias! Dzi˛ekuj˛e! May their dreams and hopes for a better tomorrow be fulfilled, wherever their journeys may take them!

viii



Acknowledgments

Caroline Archambault is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the University College Utrecht (UCU) in Africa Field Studies and Development Internship Program at the UCU, the Netherlands. Her research revolves around issues relating to children’s rights at the intersection of social anthropology, development, and demography. She works primarily in East Africa, with much of her work focused on the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania. Her main topics of research include education, migration, social organization, property rights, livelihood diversification, social organization, gender, childhood, and poverty. In her research she employs a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Her recent publications include “Pain with Punishment and the Negotiation of Childhood: An Ethnographic Analysis of Children’s Rights Processes in Maasailand” (Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 2009), “Women Left Behind?: Migration, Spousal Separation, and the Autonomy of Rural Women in Ugweno, Tanzania” (Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2010), and “Fixing Families of Mobile Children: Recreating Kinship and Belonging among Maasai Adoptees in Kenya” (Special Issue of Childhood: A Journal of Global Child Research, 2010). Liesbeth de Block is a lecturer in media, culture, and communication at the Institute of Education and a research officer in the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media. Her research interests are in the role that media play in children’s experiences of migration and settling. Previously she worked in London schools supporting refugee children. David Buckingham is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, London University, where he directs the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media (www.childrenyouthandmediacentre.co.uk). His research focuses on children and young people’s interactions with electronic media, and on media education. Marisa O. Ensor is an assistant professor of anthropology at the American University in Cairo. Her research examines the experiences of children, women, and the elderly in situations of disaster-, conflict-, ix





and development-induced displacement, focusing on sociocultural and human rights issues. She has worked in Latin America, North Africa, Spain, and the United States. She has recently completed a study of the impact of Katrina on Honduran migrant children in New Orleans and is currently working on a project of displaced Sudanese youth and their families in Egypt and Southern Sudan. Recent publications include “Education and Self-Reliance in Egypt” (Forced Migration Review. Special issue on Urban Displacement, 2010); The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch: Lessons form Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Honduras (2009); “Displaced Once Again: Honduran Migrant Children in the Path of Katrina” (Journal of Children, Youth and Environments, 2008); and “Children, Climate Change and Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities for Disaster Anthropology” (Anthropology News, 2008). Elizabeth G. Ferris is a senior fellow in foreign policy and codirector of The Brookings Institution—University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement in Washington, DC, where her work encompasses a wide range of issues related to forced migration, human rights, humanitarian action, the role of civil society in protecting displaced populations, and the security implications of displacement. Prior to joining Brookings in November 2006, Dr Ferris spent 20 years working in the field of humanitarian assistance, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland, at the World Council of Churches. There she was responsible for the Council’s work in humanitarian response and long-term development. In this capacity, she worked with many local, national, and international nongovernmental organizations to support capacity building and to advocate for protection of refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and other populations affected by conflict. She has also served as the Director of the Church World Service’s Immigration and Refugee Program, the Research Director for the Life & Peace Institute, and a Fulbright Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her teaching experience has included positions at Lafayette College, Miami University, and Pembroke State University. She has written articles for Refugee Survey Quarterly, the Middle East Institute’s Viewpoints series, Forced Migration Review, New Routes, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and the International Review of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Cynthia C. L. Field has worked in British Columbia, Canada closely with the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons since 2008. She is



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˙ Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak is the Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University and Editor of International Migration, a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal devoted to research and policy analysis of contemporary issues affecting international migration. Formerly, she held a senior position with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the US Department of Health and Human Services. She has taught at the Howard University’s School of Social Work in the Social Work with Displaced Populations Program and managed a program area on admissions and resettlement of refugees in industrialized countries for the Refugee Policy Group. Prior to immigrating to the United States, she was an associate pro´ fessor of Anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. Recent publications include: New Immigrants, Changing Communities. Best Practices for a Better America (2008, with Micah N. Bump); “The Care of Unaccompanied Undocumented Children in Federal Custody: Issues and Options” Protecting Children 23(1) January 2008 (with Micah N. Bump); “Closing the Gaps: The Need to Improve Identification and Services to Child Victims of Trafficking” Human Organization, Summer 2007, 66(2): 171–184 (with Margaret MacDonnell); Beyond the Gateway. Immigrants in a Changing America (2005, with Susan F. Martin); Data and Research on Human Trafficking: A Global Survey. Special issue of International Migration, 43(1/2), 2005 (Editor, with Frank Laczko); Religion and Forced Migration. A Special Issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies, 15(2), June 2002 (Editor, with Dianna J. Shandy); “Rethinking Refuge and Displacement.” Selected Papers on Refugees and Immigrants 2000: VIII. American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC (Editor with Dianna J. Shandy). Edmund “Ted” Hamann is an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Publications include Education in the New Latino Diaspora (2002), The Educational Welcome of Latinos in the New South (2003), and several reports and articles on reconciling school reform with school responsiveness to transnational newcomers (including



currently completing a Masters of leadership studies at the University of Victoria, focusing on social justice and adult education. Ms Field earned a Bachelors of Arts in global studies while volunteering on socioeconomic projects in Central America and plans to continue working abroad on educational and social projects.

English learners). Much of his research focuses on how demographic transitions—notably rises in Latino newcomer school enrollment— are made sense of and responded to by schools and communities. Since 2004, he has been an associated researcher and visiting professor of the Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Educación y Superación de Pobreza (CIESESP) at the Universidad de Monterrey in Nuevo León, Mexico. With colleagues there, he has engaged in a study of transnational primary school students in Mexico with previous US school experience, the topic of his chapter in this volume. He earned his PhD in education from the University of Pennsylvania and his MA in anthropology from the University of Kansas. Karin Heissler is a child protection specialist with UNICEF. She has a doctorate in development studies from the University of Oxford. Her research interests include children’s work, migration, and interand intragenerational relations. She has worked with child and human rights NGOs, research institutions, and international organizations in England, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the United States. Recent publications include “ ‘No one comes here on their own’: The System of Child Labor Migration in Bangladesh” (COMPAS Working Paper 72, 2009) and “Children’s Migration for Work in Bangladesh: The Extra- and Intra-Household Factors That Shape ‘Choice’ and ‘Decision-making’ ” (Childhoods Today, 2008). Diane M. Hoffman is an associate professor of anthropology and education at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on the cultural analysis of teaching and learning in early childhood and on the anthropological analysis of education as it relates to questions of identity, self, and emotion. Most recently, she has been engaged in developing critical cultural analyses of cultures of practice in early childhood, including parenting, social emotional learning, and the globalization of ideologies of “best practice” with regard to the rearing and education of children, particularly under conditions of extreme social marginalization. In addition, she has published widely on questions of identity and multiculturalism, including studies of minority and immigrant experiences in the United States, Japan, and South Korea. She earned her PhD in education and anthropology from Stanford University. Joost de Laat is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) and human development economist at



xii About the Contributors


xiii

Leslie J. Limage is a comparative and international education expert. She recently retired from a career with the Education Sector, UNESCO, Paris, and previously the OECD, Paris. She holds undergraduate degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduate degrees from the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and the University of London Institute of Education in Comparative Education, Sociology of Education, and Economics of Education. She has taught at secondary and university levels, including visiting professorships at the UCLA and Arizona State University. She has written extensively for scholarly publication and international organizations on equality of opportunity in education, migration, women’s migration and employment, minority and migrant education issues, respect for diversity, literacy policy and practice worldwide, and multilateral cooperation for education. Maureen Lynch is Senior Advocate for Statelessness Initiatives at Refugees International (RI), an independent Washington, DC-based refugee and humanitarian advocacy organization. Her current work on behalf of stateless persons is based on her report Lives on Hold: The Human Cost of Statelessness. She joined RI in 1999 and has conducted assessment missions to more than 25 countries. Prior to RI, she worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She holds a PhD in human development and family science from Oregon State University and has published or presented on issues related to refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons, immigration, human rights, psychology, family studies, and child development. Robin E. Pike is Executive Director of the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons, Government of British Columbia, Canada. She has a 30-year background in child welfare within both government and community agencies. She holds a Master of Arts degree in human and social development from the University of Victoria, and a BA in child and youth care. She joined British Columbia’s Ministry of Children and Family Development in 1999 to develop services for a large group of migrant youth arriving off BC’s coast that summer. In response to this unprecedented influx of unaccompanied minors, the Ministry created the Migrant Services Program which continues to operate to this day.



the World Bank. He is also cofounder of Africa SOMA, a small NGO supporting education initiatives in Kenya. His research revolves around a variety of applied microeconomic topics, including migration, work, and education, with a strong emphasis on primary data collection.


Since that time, the Program has annually assumed responsibility for approximately 40 to 50 refugee-claiming or government-assisted minors. The team has developed considerable expertise in the provision of guardianship and support services, and the Province’s program has been recognized by the UNHCR and International Red Cross for its unique approach to this population of children and youth. In July 2007, Ms Pike joined BC’s Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General to open the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons. The Office is jointly funded by the Solicitor General and the province’s Child Protection Ministry is responsible for the overall coordination of services for trafficked persons across government departments, community agencies, law enforcement, and academia. Juan Sánchez García is a “maestro de tiempo completo” (an assistant professor) at the Escuela Normal Miguel F. Martinez in Monterrey, Mexico. In addition to the various teacher education articles he has written for state and national practitioner journals in the last 20 years, Dr Sanchez is coauthor with Ted Hamann and Víctor Zúñiga of the paper “Pensando en Cynthia y Su Hermana: Educational Implications of US/Mexico Transnationalism For Children” in the Journal of Latinos and Education, 5(4): 253–274. He earned a PhD in social sciences from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in 2007. Dr Sánchez earned two masters degrees, one in educational technology from the Instituto Latinoamericano de la Comunicación Educativa and one specialty in pedagogy from the Graduate School of the Escuela Normal Superior de Nuevo León. Susan J. Terrio is a professor of anthropology and the inaugural chair of the new Department of Anthropology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, where she teaches courses on youth, migration, and the law; class, race, and ethnicity in a cross-cultural perspective; food and foodways; and sociocultural theory. Her first book, Crafting the Culture and History of French Chocolate (2000), examines the creation of newly esoteric and culturally authentic French chocolates in a context marked by intensified competition. Her most recent book, Judging Mohammed: Juvenile Delinquency, Immigration, and Exclusion at the Paris Palace of Justice (2009), chronicles the identification, treatment, and representation of a newly threatening social group, namely, “immigrant” delinquents. Her current research centers on unaccompanied, undocumented minors who migrate from the developing world to Western Europe and the United States in search of family, work, and education.



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Víctor Zúñiga is the Dean of the School of Education and Humanities, Universidad de Monterrey, Mexico. He is also a visiting professor at the Université de Versailles, Université d’Aix en Provence, and the Universidad Católica de Chile. A member of Mexican “Sistema Nacional de Investigadores” since 1989, Dr Zúñiga is the coeditor of New Destination, Mexican Immigration in the US. He holds a PhD in sociology from the Université de Paris VIII.






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Introduction: Migrant Children at the Crossroads

Introduction In the globalized world of the twenty-first century, migration has become a powerful social force affecting families and individuals of all ages. The precise number of migrant children is unknown, but commentators have argued that “in some countries the percentage of young people migrating can be as high as 50 percent” (Dall’Oglio, 2008: 1). A World Bank study estimated that 330,000 children between 6 and 17 years of age—9.5 percent—lived away from their parents (Kielland and Sanogo, 2002). Of these, 160,000 had migrated for work. Some child migrants cross international borders; others migrate within their countries of origin. Some are fleeing persecution by oppressive governments or recruitment by insurgent guerillas. Others are victims of abuse, caught up in human trafficking operations for sexual or labor exploitation. Still others migrate in search of family reunification or are motivated by social imaginaries which include the possibility of a better life elsewhere. Indeed, many youngsters migrate willingly and perceive the migratory experience as an opportunity to enhance their social and economic status, as well as facilitating their transition to adulthood (Jeffrey and McDowell, 2004; Punch, 2007). Research, policy, and advocacy efforts undertaken on behalf of migrant children have commonly focused on those living in situations that are dangerous, abusive, or exploitative, either inherently or because of the young age of the children involved. Refugee children, child asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, child soldiers, and trafficked children are frequently targeted. These children, and by extension all child migrants, are often represented as passive victims of exploitation, reflecting dominant notions of trauma and victimhood. Street youth, on 1



˙ Marisa O. Ensor and Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak

Migrant Children at the Crossroads

the other hand, are frequently portrayed as miscreants or petty criminals who lack proper socialization and are in need of adult supervision (see Terrio, this volume). Similarly, children who leave home to work often figure negatively in national and international discourses. While not a new phenomenon, child labor migration’s current controversial status is indicative of the growing influence of Western-centric ideals of childhood which view children’s employment as inappropriate (DRC, 2007). Intentionally or not, such ideals are often echoed by child advocates and programs to eliminate child labor. Given the scarcity of empirical understandings of the role children play as actors and agents in migratory processes within national and across international borders, and the effects of the juxtaposition of familial, local, and global forces on their young lives, we argue that an adequate appreciation of the complex realities of child migration requires the adoption of child-inclusive, flexible, and holistic frameworks guided by context-specific ethical stances. This volume thus presents research exploring the experiences of children as agents and actors in a variety of migratory circumstances whose age-related vulnerabilities and coping strategies were investigated rather than assumed a priori.

Children in migration The phrase “children in migration” has been used to refer, often uncritically, to a variety of circumstances in which children find themselves with increasing frequency—child refugees, asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, trafficked children, disaster displacees, street children, and economic child migrants are examples of such situations (Balahur and Budde, 2007: 40). Concerns over national sovereignty and security, responses to economic and labor market challenges, and attitudes toward national or ethnic “purity” have prompted states to draw sharp lines between different types of migratory processes and assign different immigration statuses to individual migrants. Legalistic binary categories—documented versus undocumented, labor migrant versus asylum seeker, and trafficked victim versus immigration offender—are often used to describe and classify migrants of all ages, inadequately reflecting the fluid and multifaceted character of human mobility. Children’s participation in migratory processes is further characterized by what Hess and Shandy have described as “the tension between ‘structure and agency’ ” (2008: 767), referring to the position of migrant children as independent actors vis-à-vis state institutions and policies. Children



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are often at the center of political, social, economic, and cultural life. Both community reproduction and social transformation are often actualized through children. Coe et al. (2011) examine child migration’s seemingly contradictory forces of continuity and change as inherently constitutive of a dynamic process they term “everyday ruptures” in which consistency and disruption are intertwined. Advocacy work undertaken on behalf of migrant children has tended to emphasize their dependency and vulnerability, seen as inevitably resulting from their young age and assumed immaturity. As Whitehead and Hashim (2005) caution, an excessive focus on migratory processes that are imposed, difficult, and even traumatic may lead to the erroneous assumption that all forms of child migration are necessarily exploitative. Childhood scholars advise against treating all migrant children as one universally vulnerable category, maintaining that conceptualizations of childhood and acceptable roles for children at different ages vary across time, space, and class. In some parts of the world children take on adult roles—working, caring for family members, and even heading households—at a much younger age than their counterparts in the West. These differences are especially relevant in international migration. Policymakers and service providers working with international child migrants are often confronted with conceptualizations of childhood and understandings of children’s roles in societies that are dramatically different from their own; the result is often misinterpretation and culturally inappropriate response. Ethnographic research further suggests that child migrants often play an active role in assessing their own situation, making decisions about their life trajectories, and negotiating the challenges and opportunities posed by displacement. Although they experience migration as the outcome of their personal circumstances, the option to migrate is itself socially produced. A significant factor shaping the lives of migrant children is what Carola and Marcelo Suárez-Orozco (2001: 36) term the “ethos of reception.” This includes the overall social and cultural climate they encounter, as well as the opportunities available to them and their families. This climate is largely shaped by the general attitudes and beliefs held by members of the host society about migration and migrants. The ethos of reception frames children’s perceptions of their position in their new society, contributes to the development of a sense of belonging—or exclusion—and influences their behaviors and identities (ibid.). It follows that a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of child migration requires more than attention to their




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individual experiences; it also necessitates a broad, holistic examination of the entire set of circumstances that shape migrant children’s lives.

Noddings (2005) reminds us of the global interdependence that characterizes our current world of instant communication and greater access to transportation. Indeed, international migration is one of the key factors that shape the world in which we live, playing a central role in global processes of social, economic, and political change. The forces behind international migration include such diverse factors as current global economic trends, intolerance and political exclusion, conflict, and natural disasters. More than just demographic movements across the globe, these migratory processes must be recognized as an increasingly common transformational phenomenon affecting large numbers of children and their families. As Christie and Sidhu (2002: 1–2) point out: While flows of people and goods have taken place across history, it is the changed intensity and speed of such flows which present challenges for social relations in the current period . . . some flows are perceived and experienced as smooth and benign, and others as turbulent and disruptive. Migrant children inhabit an extremely diverse social category. They often find themselves standing at the crossroads of conflicting priorities regarding local and global issues of poverty, (under)development, environmental degradation, conflict, and displacement. At the same time, both international and domestic migration patterns are becoming increasingly complex as they connect people and societies over ever larger distances. Responding to the increasing integration of young people in these global processes, a number of researchers have begun to pay attention to the ways in which discourses about children incorporate issues of power and politics. Similarly, the relationships between the child, the state, and global economic and political forces are more commonly discussed in recent scholarship (Mankekar, 1997). Stephens (1995) argues that research with children “has much to gain from serious consideration of diverse global models of political economic transformations” and promotes “interdisciplinary research conducted at the crossroads of child research and world systems literatures” (ibid.: 20). Scheper-Hughes and Sargent (1998) note that “the treatment and place



Migrant children at the crossroads

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of children . . . are affected by global political-economic structures and by everyday practices embedded in the micro-level interactions of local cultures” (ibid.: 2). A noteworthy dimension of the confluence between the multiple forces and standpoints that affect child migration is the marked contrast between the child welfare and the research community accounts. The former tends to portray displaced children as hapless and largely powerless in society, often disregarding their ingenuity in coping with challenging circumstances (Panter-Brick, 2002). Scholarly accounts of child migration, on the other hand, are often more nuanced and reflective of the diversity of migrant children’s experiences. While discourses of trauma and victimhood continue to be dominant in certain circles, resilience, agency, and vulnerability are increasingly recognized as interrelated factors that often simultaneously shape the crossroads faced by migrant children.

Resilience, agency, and vulnerability in child migration Literature about the allegedly always traumatic experiences of migrant and refugee children has had a significant impact on how they are perceived. Migrant advocacy groups have contributed to this process by invoking discourses of trauma in order to argue for asylum seekers to be granted sanctuary, and to justify requests for access to welfare resources for displaced groups. Migrant children may not necessarily share this view. Similarly, not all parents in displaced communities are of the opinion that children are particularly vulnerable to traumatic situations (Hjern and Jeppsson, 2005: 119). Jill Rutter, in her study of refugee and forced migrant children in the United Kingdom (2006), concluded that refugees rarely perceive themselves as a group particularly prone to mental illness, and that the reports produced by refugee-led organizations seldom focus on trauma. Instead, displacement-related distress is seen as resulting from unresolved difficulties “in the relationships between the demands of the settings in which people live and the adaptive or coping resources at their disposal” (Miller and Rasco, 2004: 35). Research on displaced children has tended to emphasize the psychological sequelae of uprootedness (Agger et al., 1995; Eth and Pynoos, 1985). Modern critiques of this exclusive focus on trauma and its disregard for the social dimensions of displacement have resulted in new frameworks for understanding migrant children’s adaptations to their changing realities. Michael Rutter’s work with abused children, some of whom were able to move on with their lives without exhibiting





permanent distress or dysfunctional behavior, led to the development of the concept of “resilience” (Rutter, 1985). This approach has sought to outline the protective factors and resilience that characterize some children in adverse circumstances and contrast them with risk factors and potential vulnerability. Masten et al. (1991) have similarly defined resilience as “the process of capacity for or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances” (quoted in Rutter, 2006: 39). It follows that children’s resilience is not to be defined in opposition to vulnerability, and that children may possess— or acquire—protective factors that alleviate the risks to which they may be vulnerable. The recognition of children’s social agency and active involvement in the construction and interpretation of their own lives and the lives of those around them has been further fostered by the adoption of childinclusive participatory analyses grounded in social science and human rights perspectives. Indeed, research on migrant children informed by rights-based approaches and childhood studies is an emerging trend (Hess and Shandy, 2008). Scholars are seeking to balance three interlocking principles—protection, provision, and participation—set forth in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The first two principles, protection of children from harm and provision of needed resources, have resonated with humanitarian agencies and child welfare advocates (Bluebond-Langer and Korbin, 2007: 241). Although still controversial in certain circles (Cooke and Kothari, 2002), and sometimes difficult to implement (see Ensor, this volume), participation is increasingly recognized as a fundamental principle in child-oriented studies and interventions. When this [participatory] principle is applied to the analysis of child migration, a different perspective emerges, with child migrants as agents, decision makers, initiators and social actors in their own right. From this vantage point, vulnerability and the need for protection are only one element of the social policy agenda; the other is facilitation, non-discrimination, inclusion, the promotion of opportunity and the acknowledgment of capacity for autonomous responsible action, and for child participation in policy formation. (Bhabha, 2008) Migrant children facing adversity may very well be, owing to the many limitations associated with both young age and displacement, particularly vulnerable to a variety of risk factors. Focusing exclusively on



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children’s weakness, on the one hand, may harm their self-esteem and undermine their efforts to overcome the challenges they might face. An excessive emphasis on resilience and coping, on the other hand, could obscure individual vulnerabilities or even result in blaming those individuals who appear more vulnerable for their failure to cope. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that children’s agency, and their ability to overcome the challenges of migration, is framed by their evolving capacities and reflects their own individual and socially generated vulnerabilities and resilience (Ensor, 2008: 13).

The following chapters The idea for this volume arose in the context of three initiatives developed in response to the increasing interest in re-conceptualizing the experiences of migrant children. The first was an invited session organized by the editors of this volume for the 2008 conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) held in Cairo, Egypt. Several contributors also attended a workshop on “Children on the Move in the Developing World,” hosted by the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalization and Poverty held at the University of Sussex, UK, in May 2008, providing additional impetus for this project. The Working Group on Migrant Children, of which both the editors and several contributors are members, constituted a third source of inspiration. The Working Group’s first meeting, which took place in Philadelphia, USA, in June 2008, provided further opportunities for the crystallization of our original plan to produce a volume on child migration. From its inception, the rationale for producing this book has been to explore the crossroads of challenges and opportunities in the field of child migration, to revisit key terms, to search for conceptual frameworks and research strategies that enhance our understanding of the multifaceted nature of child migration, to recognize both the vulnerability and agency of migrant children, and to identify emerging trends in the scholarship, practice, and policy-making related to child migrants. The timing of the publication is also relevant. It coincides with the 20th anniversary of the 1989 UNCRC, which both reflected and contributed to a heightened interest in children’s issues on the part of governments, international organizations, grassroots advocacy groups, and scholars from various disciplines. Children and Migration: At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability brings together an international group of experts—researchers,





policy-makers, and advocates—in the study and practice of child migration representing the fields of cultural and applied anthropology, human rights, international development, humanitarian assistance, public health, social work, education, and law. Above all, it contributes to our understanding of the increasingly common, but little explored, phenomenon of children in migratory circumstances, from the perspective of the children themselves. Chapters in this volume address theoretical, methodological, and ethical considerations of research with migrant children and examine aspects of health, education, work, kinship, and gender issues, as well as the special circumstances presented by forced migration. Rejecting essentialist perspectives that treat all migrant children as a vulnerable category, a common thread that unifies the contributions in this volume is the understanding that conceptualizations of childhood and acceptable roles for children at different ages vary over gender, class, and space and need to be examined at the crossroads of local and global forces. Much of the research presented in this volume is qualitative and ethnographic in nature, seeking to trace movements of children and understand the experience of migration from the perspective of the children themselves. A few chapters also draw on quantitative surveys carried out in source and destination countries. The essays are organized into four distinct themes. In Part I, the writings address the issues of research, voice, and representation. Marisa O. Ensor opens the volume with an examination of the various discourses on childhood and child migration that frame the way migrant children are viewed in research, practice, and policy. She argues that holistic approaches that position migrant children in the broader context of their social relationships, such as family, peer groups, and larger community, have a greater potential to increase our understanding of children’s coping abilities and resilience as well as their vulnerability. Although rigid ethical guidelines are inappropriate as children and their situations differ, addressing the complex and often sensitive circumstances that characterize child migration requires careful consideration of ethical issues of power, consent, and representation. Furthermore, the suitability of any given approach must be considered in relation to the particular circumstances of the child, both as an individual and as a member of her household and community. In the following chapter, Diane M. Hoffman considers the systems of child migration and child labor within Haiti. She discusses the paradoxes in the politics of representation that surround the restavek child in Haiti. Given the power of this context, based on a tension between a tendency of much current



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research to portray children as agents who construct and actively engage with solutions to their life situations and advocacy-based views of children as vulnerable and in need of outside aid and assistance, she asks how research can seek out and represent children’s perspectives. What might a focus on restavek children’s experiences of mobility mean for broadening our understanding of mobility and migration in children’s lives? In the third and final chapter in this section, Liesbeth de Block and David Buckingham analyze the role of media in migrant children’s lives. Their discussion focuses on the influence of media on the establishment of local connections in schools and neighborhoods and among friends as well as the maintenance and development of global and transnational identities. Their chapter also sheds light on the role of media in family life as well as the changing dynamics that new communication technologies are bringing both to the children’s lives and to patterns of family migration. In Part II of the volume, Susan J. Terrio, Elizabeth G. Ferris, and Maureen Lynch discuss the role of policy, legal provisions, and human rights frameworks in shaping the lives of migrant children. Susan J. Terrio examines the reinforcement of border control and the criminalization of immigration in twenty-first-century France focusing on the population of unaccompanied, undocumented juveniles who arrive by air and land. She also examines the proliferation of detention regimes governing these young migrants including airport holding zones, detention centers, juvenile courts, jails, and prisons. Elizabeth G. Ferris examines the legal provisions for upholding the rights of internally displaced children and assesses the roles of both national governments and the international community in exercising their responsibilities. She reviews existing international frameworks such as the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and discusses the ways in which national governments have incorporated these principles into their national legislation. Ferris concludes that, while the international community has made significant progress in developing policies and programs to protect refugee children, less has been done to uphold the rights of internally displaced children. Maureen Lynch’s examination of the situation of children from stateless groups in Africa, Asia, the Baltics, the Caribbean, and the Middle East wraps up this section. She highlights efforts made by groups of young people to press for implementation of court rulings and concludes with recommendations for action in targeted cases as well as for practical policy changes. Part III of the volume revolves around questions of practice, coping, and agency. Based on a review of Migrant Services’ case files,





Robin E. Pike and Cynthia C. L. Field’s chapter reveals the variety of reasons—the numerous push and pull factors—that lead to unaccompanied children finding themselves at a Canadian border. A large proportion of these cases have been identified as probable survivors of child trafficking. While many of the children and youth in question had some involvement in the initial decision to make the risky journeys, the vast majority did not. These children’s restricted agency resulted in their limited understanding of their destinations or potential fate. At the same time, findings also suggest that children’s circumstances and reasons for ˙ travel were as unique as the individuals concerned. Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak follows up on the child trafficking theme by examining the situation in the United States. Her analysis juxtaposes the survivors’ perceptions of their trafficking experiences with the programmatic responses of the US refugee foster care and unaccompanied minors programs aimed at reintegrating trafficked children into the wider society. Drawing on data from a year-long study of over 100 survivors of child trafficking, she explores the tensions between the local, culturally diverse conceptualizations of childhood, including children’s responsibilities vis-à-vis their families and livelihoods, and the global legal frameworks proscribing particular policy and programmatic responses toward survivors of child trafficking. The concept of “agency” is further explored in Caroline Archambault and Joost de Laat’s examination of the complex processes of child fostering in Maasailand, Kenya, and the difficulty of quantifying the effects of such movements on children’s well-being. The case of child fosterage in Maasai Southern Kenya demonstrates children’s ability to assess their own well-being in nonnatal homes and reveals their understandings of the trade-offs that they may be willing to make as they aspire to reach their goals. Child migration as a search for better opportunities is the focus of Part IV of the volume. In the first chapter of this section, Karin Heissler uses ethnographic data from Bangladesh to counter common assumptions of children’s labor migration as unavoidably exploitative. In the context of this case study, child migration is instead interpreted as a longestablished practice that reflects the gendered and aged structure of labor markets and collective agency of households in which children play an active and dynamic role. In the following chapter, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, and Juan Sánchez García examine the movement of transnational students between Mexico and the United States. Drawing on comparisons between US-born students who have experience in both US and Mexican schools, Mexico-born students who have enrolled in US



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and Mexican schools, US-born students who have only attended school in Mexico, and students who have lived and gone to school only in Mexico, the authors of this chapter use transnational students’ perspectives to shed light on how migrant children are included in national and international programs. Their findings support the premise that migrant children form a heterogeneous rather than universally vulnerable population. Leslie J. Limage’s chapter concludes this section with an essay on the philosophy of equality and space occupied by children in France’s social fabric, particularly in educational opportunity. In the final chapter, we use lessons stemming from the case studies of child migration around the world to discuss salient research gaps and make recommendations aimed at assisting migration practitioners in designing policies and practices to enhance the well-being of migrant children.

Bibliography I. Agger, S. Vuk, and J. Mimica (1995) Theory and Practice of Psychosocial Projects under War Conditions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia (Zagreb: CHO/ECTF). D. Balahur and R. Budde (2007) “Nomadic Child and Childhood”, in Focus on Children in Migration: From a European Research and Method Perspective. Conference Report, (Warsaw: Save the Children), 40–43, March 20–21. J. Bhabha (2008) “Independent Children, Inconsistent Adults: International Child Migration and the Legal Framework”, Discussion Papers, IDP No. 2008–02 (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre), May. M. Bluebond-Langner and J. E. Korbin (2007) “Challenges and Opportunities in the Anthropology of Childhoods: An Introduction to ‘Children, Childhoods, and Childhood Studies’ ”, in “Focus: Children, Childhoods, and Childhood Studies”, American Anthropologist, 109(2): 241–246. C. Coe, D. Boehm, J. M. Hess, H. R. Espinoza, and R. Reynolds (eds) (2011) Everyday Ruptures: Children and Migration in Global Perspective (Nashville, KY: Vanderbilt University Press). B. Cooke and U. Kothari (2002) Participation: The New Tyranny? (London and New York: Zed Books). P. Christie and R. Sidhu (2002) “Responding to Globalisation: Refugees and the Challenges Facing Australian Schools”, Mots Pluriels, 21. Available at http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/MotsPluriels/MP2102pers.html. L. Dall’Oglio (2008) “Agenda Item 60: Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children—63rd Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.” IOM Speech delivered by Luca Dall’Oglio, Permanent Observer to the United Nations (New York), October 16. Development Research Centre (DRC) (2007) Workshop on Independent Child Migrants: Policy Debates and Dilemmas. Organized by the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty (University of Sussex and UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre), September 12.





M. O. Ensor (2008) “Children, Climate Change and Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities for Disaster Anthropology,” Anthropology News (Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association), 13–14. S. Eth and R. Pynoos (eds.) (1985) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Children (Washington DC: American Psychiatric Press). J. M. Hess and D. Shandy (2008) “Kids at the Crossroads: Global Childhood and the State”, Anthropological Quarterly, 81(4): 765–776. A. Hjern and O. Jeppsson (2005) “Mental Health Care for Refugee Children in Exile”, in D. Ingleby (ed.) Forced Migration and Mental Health: Rethinking the Care of Refugees and Displaced Persons (New York: Springer), 115–128. C. Jeffrey and L. McDowell (2004) “Youth in a Comparative Perspective: Global Change, Local Lives”, Youth and Society, 36: 131–142. A. Kielland and I. Sanogo (2002) Burkina Faso: Child Labour Migration from Rural Areas: The Magnitude and Determinants (Washington, DC: World Bank/Terre des Hommes). P. Mankekar (1997) “To Whom Ameena Belongs? Towards a Feminist Analysis of Childhood and Nationhood in Contemporary India”, Feminist Review, 56: 26–60. A. Masten, K. Best, and N. Garmezy (1991) “Resilience and Development: Contributions for the Study of Children Who Overcome Adversity”, Development and Psychopathology, 2: 425–444. K. E. Miller and L. M. Rasco (2004) “An Ecological Framework for Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Refugee Communities”, in Miller, K. E. and L. Rasco (eds) The Mental Health of Refugees: Ecological Approaches to Healing and Adaptation (Mahwah, NJ, and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). N. Noddings (ed.) (2005) Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (New York: Teachers College Press). C. Panter-Brick (2002) “Street Children, Human Rights, and Public Health”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 31: 147–171. S. Punch (2007) “Negotiating Migrant Identities: Young People in Bolivia and Argentina”, Children’s Geographies, 5(1–2): 95–112. J. Rutter (2006) Refugee Children in the UK (Maidenhead: Open University Press). M. Rutter (1985) “Resilience in the Face of Adversity—Protective Factors and Resistance to Psychiatric Disorder”, British Journal of Psychiatry, 147: 598–611. N. Scheper-Hughes and C. Sargent (eds) (1998) Small Wars: The Cultural Politics of Childhood (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). S. Stephens (ed.) (1995) Children and the Politics of Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press). C. Suárez-Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco (2001) Children of Immigration (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press). A. Whitehead and I. Hashim (2005) Children and Migration, Background paper for DFID Migration Team.



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Understanding Migrant Children: Research, Voice, and Representation



Part I




Understanding Migrant Children: Conceptualizations, Approaches, and Issues Marisa O. Ensor

Introduction Responding to the challenges and opportunities presented by the accelerating pace of human mobility, studies and interventions guided by different conceptualizations of childhood and children have increasingly focused on the youngest participants in this global trend. These perspectives range from earlier assumptions of the universality of childhood ideals to the growing recognition of childhood and youth as constructed categories that vary greatly historically and cross-culturally. Current understandings of child migration, as well as the policies they have inspired, often reflect dominant notions of victimhood and psychological trauma. Migrant children have been represented as passive, and often traumatized, victims of exploitation, devoid of agency, and lacking an active role in decision-making and migration processes. Children’s assumed vulnerability and need for protection is frequently stressed by charitable organizations in their efforts to raise awareness of the “plight” of child migrants. These constructions have shaped popular representations of migrant children’s lives, and their impacts on migration interventions are powerful. Alternative conceptualizations of migrant children as agents who actively negotiate their changing circumstances have also gained increasing recognition in recent years. Indeed, views of children as articulate social actors have become “somewhat of a new research orthodoxy,” particularly in anthropology (James, 2007: 261). However, the role of children’s voices in research and practice remains a contested issue. Efforts to examine migrant children’s lives from their own perspectives have been advocated as leading to richer and more 15



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Understanding Migrant Children

nuanced portraits of child migrants than conventional adult-centered approaches (Van Blerk, 2006). Other authors have drawn attention to the absence of critical reflection on the use of “children’s voices” in research (James, 2007: 265) and have argued for a more balanced approach that integrates children into a multivocal, multigenerational view of households and communities (Bluebond-Langner and Korbin, 2007: 242). Adequate attention to the multifaceted character of child migration leads to further recognition that agency and vulnerability are not mutually exclusive. Instead, both characteristics may manifest themselves simultaneously in varying degrees depending on children’s circumstances (ibid.). This chapter discusses the most prevalent discourses of childhood and migration that frame the way migrant children are viewed in research, practice, and policy. I argue that addressing the complex, and often sensitive, circumstances that characterize child migration requires attention to the various ways children are conceptualized and careful consideration of ethical issues of power, consent, and representation. Holistic approaches that position migrant children in the broader context of their social relationships such as family, peer groups, and larger community have a greater potential to increase our understanding of children’s coping abilities and resilience as well as their vulnerability. These approaches can thus contribute to more effectively equipping children to navigate the challenges encountered in their migratory experiences.

Discourses and approaches to childhood and migration studies Discourses on children and childhood are fluid and evolving. “Neither fixed nor free-standing,” constructions of childhood “are embedded in particular social, cultural and historical contexts” (James and James, 2008: 1) and have important implications for conducting research with migrant children. Whether children are viewed as objects in or subjects of their lives influences the overall research approach which, in turn, determines the methods used in the research process. Views of children as lacking full adult capacities are likely to lead to assumptions that research on children’s issues is best carried out with competent adults, an approach that was dominant until the 1990s and is still prevalent in some development and aid organizations (Boyden and Ennew, 1997). Conversely, approaches informed by a view of children as capable of independent decision-making are more likely to be



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concerned with issues of research context and children’s agency and participation. Efforts specifically focused on understanding the experiences of migrant children have been similarly guided by a variety of discourses, reflecting diverse assumptions and understandings of childhood and migration. Prevalent Western views of children as incapable of independent economic or political action have reinforced common constructions of child migration as an inevitably abusive and exploitative phenomenon (Davidson and Farrow, 2007: 9–10). Alternatives to the dominant trauma discourse, including child-centered participatory research and human rights approaches, have also been gaining increased recognition, especially in the social sciences and child-focused advocacy. Overall, current scholarship and practice on children’s issues from various standpoints show a growing interest in more nuanced understandings of both agency and vulnerability and reflect a clearer recognition of the wide variation of views on childhood worldwide. Both elements are of paramount importance in the context of child migration—often a cross-cultural experience by definition, as illustrated by the case studies contained in this volume. Conceptualizations of childhood Child migrants are first and foremost children—they just happen to find themselves in a particular set of migratory circumstances. Thus perspectives on migrant children have been influenced by prevalent conceptualizations of childhood. Constructions of childhood generally include both descriptive and normative characteristics. They encompass the traits attributed to girls and boys of different ages and the way they are treated and valued by society and shape the expected behavior, roles, and responsibilities assigned to children. These factors are best understood in relation to the sociocultural conditions in which they emerged (Heywood, 2001). In turn, the sociocultural circumstances that frame children’s lives are a product of interrelated local and broader economic and political processes. Migration, colonialism, and missionary activity served as vehicles through which white middle-class Western notions of childhood, and their associated Western academic discourses, were exported to the rest of the world in the nineteenth century. Known as the “global model of childhood” (Ansell, 2005: 23), this conceptualization defined children by their limitations and saw them as weaker, incomplete, and biologically and psychologically distinct from adults. The transition to adulthood was conceived as proceeding along universal, scientifically



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established stages (Boyden and Ennew, 1997). Reflecting a paternalistic stance, international and nongovernmental organizations have been exporting the “global model of childhood” to Africa, Asia, and Latin America since the mid-twentieth century (Ennew, 1995), often reflecting “a view of childhood outside of or uninformed by the social contexts within which the child reside[d]” (James et al., 1998: 10). The “global model of childhood,” however, does not reflect the experiences of the majority of young people in developing countries, or even in the West (Ansell, 2005: 23). French historian and philosopher Philippe Ariès (1962) is often credited with drawing attention to the link between historical processes and changing understandings of childhood. In particular, he posited that the very notion of childhood as a distinct state was largely absent in Western culture prior to the fifteenth century. Rather, young people, seen as “proto adults,” were expected to participate in social and economic life as soon as they were physically capable of doing so. Many of today’s popular ideas about childhood, Ariès further proposed, emerged in the nineteenth century when socioeconomic factors caused children to be progressively removed from adult society into their own spaces (Heywood, 2001). More recently, archaeological, historical, and ethnographic studies have documented the existence of childhood as a distinct stage since antiquity, rebutting Ariès’ claim that childhood is a relatively recent invention (Lancy, 2008: 4). Nevertheless, his main thesis that earlier conceptualizations of childhood differed greatly from those prevailing today, and that understandings of the role of children in society continue to change in the present, is still widely acknowledged as an important contribution to childhood studies. Scholarly and popular interest in a variety of children’s issues around the world have increased dramatically since the 1990s (Boyden, 1997: 194), leading to a reexamination of many commonly held ideas about children, and especially what constitutes a “proper” childhood (James and Prout, 1990; Jenks, 1990). An influential contribution to theorizing childhood was made by Jenks (1996) who characterized dominant Western constructions of childhood as either “Dionysian” or “Apollonian.” The Dionysian view portrays children as wicked, easily corrupted “little devils” in need of discipline and strict moral guidance. By contrast, the Apollonian view sees children as innocent but vulnerable “little angels” who must be given special care and protection from the evils of the adult world. Both Dionysian and Apollonian views1 of childhood consider children to be fundamentally different from adults.



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Children have come to be seen as incomplete—passive recipients of adult care and protection, rather than agents in their own lives, let alone the wider society. “They belong to families, and it is their families that act upon their behalf and represent their interest” (Ansell, 2005: 12). While both Dionysian and Apollonian elements can be discerned in popular understandings of children in Western context, prevalent notions that childhood should be a time set apart from the adult world are largely rooted in an Apollonian view of children as special but incomplete and vulnerable. Within Western societies, conventional social thought on childhood has drawn on the premise that children are less than adults—not yet full members of society because of their limited biological and psychological capacities (Van Blerk, 2006: 52). Perspectives from developmental psychology have reinforced this view. Indeed, “[t]he legacy of Piagetian ideas of development . . . has helped to naturalize the link between chronological age and individual capacity, with the consequence that certain actions appear unquestionably inappropriate for certain age groups” (Hart, 2006: 7). Fieldwork-grounded social science, on the other hand, has provided ample evidence indicating that childhood and youth are neither natural nor universal categories (Ansell, 2005; Lancy, 2008). For instance, cross-cultural research in Papua New Guinea has demonstrated the profound influence of culture and formal schooling on cognition (Lancy, 1983; Lancy and Strathern, 1981; Ochs and Schieffelin, 1984), countering the universality of Piagetian stages of cognitive development (Lancy, 2008: 1). Indeed, efforts to challenge the ethnocentric lens of Western psychology date at least to the pioneering work of Mead who, in her seminal and controversial Coming of Age in Samoa (1928/1961), countered G. Stanley Hall’s claims that stress and turmoil were unavoidable characteristics of adolescence (as cited in Lancy, 2008: 1). More recent holistic approaches to the study of children in various sociocultural contexts acknowledge that “[c]hildhood integrates biological and social processes” (Scheper-Hughes and Sargent, 1998: 1) and, although there are biological facts that shape children’s lives, particularly in early childhood, the familial and cultural circumstances that frame their everyday experiences are eminently social. One of the most influential theoretical standpoints in the modern social science of children is the so-called “new paradigm of childhood studies”2 articulated most explicitly by Allison James and Alan Prout (James 1990 and James et al., 1998). This “new paradigm” has refocused current understandings of the experiences of children by demonstrating that childhood is socially, politically, economically, and culturally



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constructed, while children themselves are perceived as active agents in the processes affecting their lives (Holloway and Valentine, 2000; James et al., 1998). As a result, four distinct ways of studying children have been identified: (1) children as socially constructed within varying historical, geographical, moral, and political contexts; (2) children as socially competent actors, not necessarily in need of protection but worthy of study independently of adult concerns3 ; (3) children as a minority group potentially subject to age-based discrimination; and (4) children as integral to wider social structures, usually examined from their own perspectives (James et al., 1998). Resting on a largely socially constructed view of childhood, anthropological approaches to the study of children have documented the wide cultural range of experiences that characterize the early years of life across the globe. Boyden and de Berry’s (2004) detailed ethnographic analysis of children uprooted by conflict was one of the first to examine prevalent conceptions of childhood and it challenged assumptions of universal vulnerability and victimization of displaced children. The trauma discourse on migrant children The disciplines of psychology and psychiatry have played powerful roles in framing popular understandings of children and childhood. Indeed, developmental psychology was until recently the area of social science that dominated research with children (Jenks, 1996). Psychologyderived assumptions have also been instrumental in shaping interventions aimed at children living in adverse circumstances (Hart, 2006). The field, however, has been dominated by controversy about the prevalence of psychological trauma among individuals exposed to severe distress (Silove et al., 2000). Proponents of the Western psychological perspective have generally espoused a belief in the pervasiveness of trauma and associated negative psychological consequences in such settings (Agger et al., 1995). Some child psychiatrists noted that the mental disturbances of children showed many similarities to those of adults, and they began to use the concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in clinical practice and research in the latter part of the 1980s (Eth and Pynoos, 1985). Critics of the trauma model, on the other hand, have questioned the tendency to describe entire populations as traumatized simply because they have lived through episodes of displacement or conflict. Doubt has also been cast on whether diagnostic constructs such as PTSD have any validity or meaning in non-Western societies (Summerfield, 1999). More specifically, the trauma approach has been criticized for ignoring the



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role that culture plays in issues of distress and mental health, instead interpreting people’s responses by means of predetermined psychiatric categories and symptom checklists. “There is a serious possibility that the Western trauma discourse imported into the lives of people whose meaning systems have been devitalized by war and forced displacement might impair their struggle to reconstitute a sense of reality, morality and dignity” (Summerfield, 2005: 101). Methodologically, the study of children by psychologists is usually carried out in clinical settings removed from the social contexts where children’s lives take place. These studies are characterized by an almost exclusive focus on pathology rather than resilience, an emphasis on psychological and emotional symptoms, and a lack of consideration of social relationships and political, economic, and cultural factors (Hart, 2006: 7). Medicalized responses derived from this model also tend to focus solely on the trauma itself. Child migrants, especially certain groups such as unaccompanied minors and trafficked children whose experiences are assumed to be very stressful, are seen as a homogeneous group. Children’s pre- and postmigration circumstances, as well as their complex cultural, socioeconomic, and educational needs, tend to be ignored. Victimhood is thus seen as universally constitutive of the child migrant. Intense but selective advocacy on behalf of groups of child migrants in particularly challenging circumstances—unaccompanied minors, refugees, trafficked children, street children—has also contributed to distorted perceptions of child migration, obscuring the relation between “hazardous child migration and more benign forms” (Whitehead and Hashim, 2005: 8). Castles (2003: 25) has further argued that, since research on migration is so often policy driven, “its research questions, methods and even findings are shaped by the political interests of government and funding bodies.” Child migration has, in this context, been approached as a problem whose negative consequences are emphasized and potential benefits ignored. Some ethnographic research does support psychological studies in finding that some children sometimes experience considerable distress after being exposed to life-threatening events (Rutter, 2006: 38). Disagreements arise, however, in relation to the proper way to interpret their responses and propose suitable interventions. Drawing from their research on children’s responses to psychosocial distress in Cambodia, Boyden and Gibbs (1997) remind us that “the ways in which people express and embody and give meaning to distress is largely dependent on context—social, cultural, political and economic.” Clifton-Everest’s



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Do not experience their memories as distressing and unwanted intrusions into their thinking. The memories seldom seem to give rise to panic, emotional disorientation, or distraction from the tasks children have to perform and distract them from other tasks. Rather they are just part of the child’s unpleasant personal history that he goes over time and time again as he tries to make sense of what had happened to him, and to learn some lessons for the future. What preoccupies these children much more, and causes them panic and distress, is thoughts about the dangers of the future. (ibid.: 90) The importance of examining people’s own perceptions and the meaning they attach to events was further emphasized by a UNICEF study of exposure to potentially traumatic events and subsequent PTSD symptoms—such as mistrust and hypervigilance—among Sudanese boys in the Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya (Raundalen et al., 1994; cited in Jeppsson and Hjern, 2005: 77). A subsequent study (Jeppsson and Hjern, 2005) confirmed that, while these symptoms were widespread, they seemed to have a surprisingly limited impact on the boys’ lives and well-being. For these children, brought up to protect their cows from wild animals and hostile neighbors, it seems rather doubtful whether hypervigilance should be considered a pathological symptom requiring treatment. Some children exposed to the extremely alienating and abusive conditions often associated with human trafficking, on the other hand, may indeed require psychological counseling as part of their rehabilitation. Assumptions of universally maladjusted responses to traumatic experiences, however, are unwarranted even under these extreme circumstances (see Chapter 7 by Pike and Field, this volume; Chapter 8 by Go´zdziak, this volume). Growing concerns over their limitations notwithstanding, psychological approaches continue to occupy a dominant position in childhood studies. This is most obvious in the context of children in migratory circumstances—particularly those in forced migration—where the hegemonic discourse of trauma and psychological distress has had a major impact on how migrant children are viewed by scholars, advocacy groups, and the general public.



(2005) work among displaced Sierra Leonean children also undermines claims of universally dysfunctional responses to distressing circumstances. In particular he argues that, oftentimes, those children who had experienced the atrocities of war:

Offering a more culturally grounded alternative to traditional clinical approaches, the popularity of psychosocial programs has increased in recent times. Drawing on principles of public health, psychosocial interventions often emphasize strategies of communal self-help and involvement of local communities, minimizing dependence on external expertise and imported technology (Silove, 2005: 39). The psychosocial model seeks to foster capacity building and community development and to promote children’s agency and participation (PWG, 2004: 2), which is seen as “psychologically beneficial since it helps restore people’s dignity and sense of control following overwhelming experiences” (ibid.). Child-centered participatory research The notion of participation emerged in the late 1970s and has since gradually gained acceptance as a basic operational principle of development programming and humanitarian assistance, as well as academic research in a variety of contexts. Referring specifically to the situation of children, O’Kane (2004; as quoted in Williams, 2004) highlights participation as “an ongoing process of children’s active involvement in decision-making (at different levels) in matters that concern them. It requires information sharing and dialogue between children and adults, which is based on mutual respect and power sharing” (ibid.). In other words, “[g]enuine participation gives children the power to shape both the process and outcome” (ibid.). UNICEF similarly defines participation as “the process of sharing decisions which affect one’s life and the life of the community in which one lives. It is the means by which democracy is built and it is a standard against which democracies should be measured” (2003: 4). From a methodological point of view, participatory research focuses on generating knowledge from the perspective of those being researched, rather than from the perspective of the researchers,4 which is accomplished through the involvement of the people whose lives are being studied in defining the research questions and taking an active part in both collecting and analyzing the data. Facilitating children’s participation in research (rather than simply using innovative participatory techniques) has proven a fruitful strategy to enable children to express their own views, thereby reshaping the research process in terms of both the methods used and the content of discussions (Van Blerk, 2006: 54). In practical terms, participatory research with children includes a range of activities—traditional or innovative—that allow young participants to take part in the different stages of research,



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from gathering information, through the analysis and interpretation of the data, to reporting and disseminating the results. De Block and Buckingham (Chapter 3, this volume), for instance, examine children’s participation in media production as a creative strategy to enable child migrants to explore and represent their own migration experiences. The involvement of children in designing and implementing research projects, when done carefully and sensitively, can go a long way towards attenuating the power imbalances between adult researchers and participant children. Involving children in the interpretation of data makes the findings, as well as any subsequent policy recommendations, much more relevant to children. Additionally, any effective dissemination of findings must be done in a manner that makes the information accessible to the various audiences—children who participated in the research or others interested in the issues; migration scholars; funding agencies; policy-makers; and service providers. Clearly, children’s ability to successfully address these various stakeholders will depend on their own capacities, the issues being discussed and the characteristics of the audience, but most would be able to be involved in some meaningful capacity. This kind of research may be more time-consuming and perhaps more expensive than traditional household surveys or questionnaires administered, analyzed, and reported by adult researchers. Its proponents, however, see it as more cost-effective alternative in the long run as it generates more precise, culturally relevant information which is more likely to lead to more successful interventions for displaced and migrant children (Beazley and Ennew, 2006: 191–92). Participatory approaches are increasingly seen as an essential dimension of research with and on children in general, and those facing adversity in particular, reflecting a view of children as “independent, thinking subjects capable and deserving of a greater degree of participation” (Hart, 1997: 11). This view is both substantiated by study findings and legitimized by modern human rights perspectives, discussed below. Children’s involvement in research, on the other hand, is not without challenges and potential drawbacks. Girls, younger children, and members of poorer households or ethnic minorities tend to be less assertive and are at a heightened risk of being marginalized or ignored during the research process. An exclusive focus on resourceful, resilient children—those who are more likely to take part in research projects—may also lead to further disenfranchisement of those who are overwhelmed by the confluence of adverse circumstances. Mayo (2001) further suggests that the real challenge is not to enable children to speak as to ensure their voices will be heard so that participation does



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not become a merely tokenistic exercise. “Giving voice” to young people may also be problematic when their views conflict with established understandings. The social acceptability of children’s participation is another important consideration, as there may be migrant/native and first generation/ second generation differences regarding views on the appropriate role of children in society. Hence, researchers must be mindful of the consequences of young people’s participation in relation to their adult counterparts. Parents may feel humiliated and angered by their children’s public disclosure of what they might see as private matters. They may even resist the idea of children’s participation altogether, considering the focus on “children’s issues” to be unreasonable and inappropriate in the face of the more pressing “adult concerns” posed by migration and displacement (Ensor, 2008a: 13). Furthermore, children can be manipulated by adult agendas. It is thus essential to establish trust among the various stakeholders and try to differentiate between normative statements resulting from children’s internalization of popular discourse and those actually reflecting their own views and priorities (Johnson, 1996). Clearly, taking migrant children’s participation seriously entails more than encouraging them to be involved and express their views; it also requires a thorough understanding of the power relations between migrant and non-migrant children and between children and adults, both researchers and community members, as well as sensitivity to issues of voice and representation (Ensor, 2008a: 13). When expectations are not met, children may feel disempowered and disillusioned, and less inclined to participate in similar projects. Human rights approaches The use of human rights discourses has become increasingly common among scholars as an alternative—or complementary—lens to examine the experience of migrant children and other potentially vulnerable groups. One of the main advantages of calling attention to children’s issues in a rights-framed approach is that “for the first time in modern history, children are no longer seen as appendices of their families, the state or charitable institutions” (Reynolds et al., 2006). While the children’s rights movement can be regarded as part of a directed social change effort intended to offer alternative modes of analysis and practice (Rossen, 2008: 5), the increasingly common use of human rights approaches to children’s issues has also sparked intense debate in some circles. Proponents see international human rights documents such as



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the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as powerful tools for challenging abuse and exploitation and addressing unequal power relations (Freeman, 1997), while radical critics contend that human rights instruments are essentially ideological constructs serving Western hegemonic agendas (Stammers, 1999). Part of this ongoing debate pertains to the tension inherent in the two general principles that constitute the cornerstones of the CRC. These are (1) the best interest principle which has guided efforts to establish protective measures and policies to ensure children’s safety and welfare; and (2) the principle of child agency (also known as children’s participatory rights) that acknowledges children as subjects of law, as younger human beings with their own abilities and rights, including the right to have a voice and be listened to. In exercising their right to have their views and priorities given due weight, children may choose to engage in activities—such as armed conflict or irregular labor migration—that would appear to be contrary to the best interest principle. For example, there is ample evidence suggesting that many of the young migrants and child workers being targeted by charitable institutions for special interventions do not consider themselves as minors in need of protection or “expert” adult advice. Rather, they see themselves as actively and positively engaged in building a better future for themselves and their families (Ensor, 2008b; Levine, 1999; Liebel, 2003, 2004; Murphy, 2003; Peters and Richards, 1998; Peterson and Read, 2002; see also Archambault and de Laat, Chapter 9 of this volume; Heissler, Chapter 10 of this volume). Although the number of international, regional, and domestic treaties and guidelines regulating the treatment of migrant children has steadily increased in recent years, the CRC remains the most important instrument establishing international standards of protection and care for children in all circumstances, including migrant children. Of particular relevance is General Comment Number 6 on the Treatment of Unaccompanied and Separated Children, adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2005. Broader standards include core human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), whose provisions apply universally, and the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions specifically applying to migrants and, in particular, to migrant workers. Another important instrument is the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which applies to migrant children as family members, but also, when relevant,



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as workers. This convention reaffirms the rights set forth in the CRC (UNICEF, 2004: 2). It has been argued, however, that those “[a]rticles in the Migrant Worker Convention that address children do so considering them as children of migrant workers and never as minors migrating alone” (Touzenis, 2007: 56), perhaps in an effort to avoid being interpreted as legitimizing the phenomenon of minors as migrant workers (ibid.). Growing international interest in the human rights issues affecting children in situations of forced migration is also evident. International organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) regularly track child migration statistics for refugee and internally displaced persons. They have also issued a series of Executive Committee (known as EXCOM) recommendations and guidelines about refugee children (UNHCR, 1993, 1994, 1997), intended to clarify and strengthen the protection measures required of all states party to the 1951 Refugee Convention (as modified by the 1967 Protocol). While the international refugee protection system is far from being a panacea, many child asylum applicants do receive some form of protection, including humanitarian leave, temporary permission to remain, or discretionary status (Bhabha, 2008). Intended as a Protocol to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is one of a number of international human rights instruments established to regulate the status and treatment of stateless persons, including children (see Chapter 6 by Lynch, this volume). Similarly, the passage of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime of 2000, gave renewed impetus to global efforts to address this phenomenon. Many states have since then instituted special anti-trafficking statutes for victims of trafficking, including children (see Chapter 7 by Pike and Field and Chapter 8 by Go´zdziak, this volume). The development of human rights approaches to children’s issues signals the realization on the part of the international community that “the treaties concerned with human rights in general without stipulating specific rights for children are not enough to safeguard this group of the population or do justice to them” (Badran, 1995: xv). Most advocate non-essentialist understandings of children rights and argue that human rights instruments must not be read en abstracto, but interpreted and put into practice in a way that reflects local cultural contexts. Debates and controversies notwithstanding, the international human



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Ethics and research with migrant children In recent years, ethical considerations have increasingly come to the fore reflecting a growing concern over appropriate behaviors of those involved in academic and professional endeavors (Parsons, 2005: 73). Key ethical issues of research with children include ensuring that the purpose and outcomes of the research are beneficial to migrant children or, at the very least, that they will not be negatively impacted in any way; being sensitive to the needs of children in special circumstances— including children with disabilities, children with HIV/AIDS, distressed or abused children, orphaned and unaccompanied children, and the girl child; being mindful of the time and effort that children would have to commit to the research process so that it does not interfere with their other daily activities; obtaining consent from the relevant adults when appropriate and, in the case of the children involved, considering their capacity to make their own judgment; and giving proper attention to issues of privacy and confidentiality. While the ethics of undertaking research with children are always complex, studies involving migrant and displaced children require particular attention to these issues. Ethically responsible research with child migrants also necessitates careful consideration of issues of power and culture differentials, as understandings of what constitutes appropriate, responsible and moral behavior may differ among the various stakeholders involved. Thus, caution should be exercised to uphold the moral stance and responsibilities of the researchers without imposing Western perspectives on ethical issues that arise in other cultures. Questioning the ownership and control of the research process and its ultimate benefits for those involved are also crucial elements of ethical research, as migrant children may start out from a position of inequality, both as study participants as well as in society at large. In this regard, ethical considerations entail being mindful of how children would be affected by their involvement in the research, and ensuring that all stages of the process take place in a way that is not exploitative and does not compromise their rights. Even when all these precautions have been taken, ethical dilemmas may arise as a result of conflicting views on culturally ascribed roles for children, and the reservations people may have on the “modern” perspective on children’s rights and autonomy.



rights regime offers a legal framework of rights and protections for migrant children of increasingly widespread use among child welfare advocates and service providers.

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Any research context is riddled and cross-cut by relationships of power, from those between the sponsors of the research and the research, and between the researchers and the researched, to power relationships within the culture of the research setting, relationships between classes and clans, landholders and landless, educated and illiterate, elders and juniors, women and men, rich and poor. (2006: 27) Advocacy-relevant research with migrant children also needs to be mindful of protection issues. Given the often-marginalized position occupied by migrant children, efforts to remove them from harmful situations and ensure their well-being may require particularly sensitive approaches. Researches and advocates need to be aware that reporting child abuse does not necessarily guarantee a sensitive response on the part of the authorities or even other community members (Laws et al., 2003). A case in point, a recent study of Honduran youth who migrated to post-Katrina New Orleans to work in disaster reconstruction, revealed the exploitative circumstances that framed their experience, including living in overcrowded substandard lodgings and working in unsanitary conditions. Ethnographic data indicated that these young labor migrants were well aware of the risks, and indeed believed that it was their willingness to work under these conditions that made them more attractive as workers (Ensor, 2008b). Research with street children in Uganda similarly highlighted the difficulties associated with disclosing abusive behavior when the abusers hold positions of power in society (Young and Barrett, 2001). This type of situation raises questions over whether and how abuse should be reported and to whom. Well-intended efforts on the part of researchers to end exploitative situations for children may instead create additional problems, or even be perceived by affected children themselves as unwelcome interfering. One potential strategy to avoid this quandary would entail soliciting the views of the children in all decision-making regarding the appropriate solutions for addressing problems and reporting incidents (Van Berk, 2006: 57).

Conclusions This chapter highlights the importance of adopting conceptual frameworks and approaches that enhance our understanding of the



Power is a critical dimension of any type of research in terms of the practical aspects of design and implementation, the dissemination of findings, and as a critical ethical issue. As Brydon posits,


multifaceted experiences of migrant children. In the twenty-first-century world of shifting values and boundaries, understandings of childhood often oscillate between competing moral agendas that have important implications for policy and practice on child migration. Early constructions of children as either “endangered little cherubs” or “dangerous little devils” (Jenks, 1996) continue to echo in the current disjuncture between humanitarian and security concerns. They are also reflected in the dichotomous view of migrant children as either traumatized victims in need of treatment or agents capable of independent decision-making. Increasing concern with agency and context, both in rights-based advocacy and in the social sciences, has led to new approaches to childhood studies and a broadening of interest in children’s lives across a wider range of global contexts (Holloway and Valentine, 2000; James et al., 1998). Highlighting the link between discourse and practice, Ann Whitehead cautions us against using simplistic views of migrant children as either “romantic heroes” or “passive victims” and reminds us that the way in which we view children’s agency is likely to affect academic and policy debates on child migration (cited in DRC, 2007: 7). Discourses on child migration are also framed by global and local structures and dynamics (transnational flows of people, resources, and ideas; state policies and practices; community and household context; kinship relations) that both activate and constraint individual agency (Hess and Shandy, 2008: 767). Adequately addressing migrant children’s agency and choicemaking capabilities requires a proper recognition of their age-related vulnerabilities as well as their coping abilities and resilience. Sound, ethically responsible research with children in migratory circumstances should also be sensitive to the many challenges as well as opportunities they encounter in their efforts to adapt to life in their host countries. This holistic approach has a greater potential to enhance our ability to formulate appropriate policies and implement effective interventions that are protective and flexible, not punitive or dismissive of migrant children’s circumstances.

Notes 1. Alternatives to the dichotomous Dionysian-Apollonian approach to theorizing children have been recently formulated. In a study of The Anthropology of Childhood (2008), for instance, Lancy offers comparative evidence suggesting that children across the world have been alternatively viewed as “precious, innocent, and preternaturally cute cherubs,” “desired but pragmatically commodified chattel” or even “unwanted, inconvenient changelings,”



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depending on the society in question, and the prevalent historical or current socio-economic circumstances (ibid.: 2–3). 2. In spite of the name by which it is commonly known, this approach is not entirely new. In the 1970s, authors such as Hardman (1973) and Schildkrout (1978) encouraged anthropologists to study children as human beings in their own right. 3. In James and Prout (1990), this group is referred to as “tribal” children. 4. In social science, the distinction between the insider (native) and the outsider (researcher) perspectives dates back to 1954 when linguistic anthropologist Kenneth L. Pike coined the neologisms emic and etic to refer, respectively, to the two standpoints from which any cultural system can be studied.

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Migrant Children in Haiti: Domestic Labor and the Politics of Representation Diane M. Hoffman

As do many other nations in the world today, Haiti faces extraordinary challenges to economic and social development, not the least of which are the complicated issues that surround questions of child labor, child welfare, international human rights, and democratic citizenship. These issues constitute a landscape of competing national and transnational discourses, shaped both by universal charitable concerns and by differing visions of what may constitute best practices for assisting children and communities facing situations of abuse and exploitation. Against this backdrop, a long tradition of internal independent migration of children within Haiti to assume unpaid positions as domestic workers reflects a particular convergence of historical, social, economic, and political forces. A recent surge of international media interest in child domestic workers in Haiti (known as restavek) has made the topic an important one for human rights and international aid organizations concerned with child welfare. This analysis considers the systems of child migration and child labor within Haiti through a cultural lens, focusing on the tension between international media and advocacy images of the child as victim and research approaches that tend to illustrate the ways in which children, even those who are highly vulnerable or marginalized, exert agency to address the conditions of their lives. Though little research has been conducted on restavek, existing studies paint great variability within the system, and a relatively high degree of child agency and mobility. Despite the fact that much recent research on independent child migration in South Asia and West Africa finds that many children view migration as a way to access better social opportunities, and that they are not simple pawns in family livelihood strategies nor are they victims 36



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of traffickers, such research is controversial because of the implications it has for policy and advocacy for children (Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalization, and Poverty, 2008). Particularly in the case of Haiti, research that focuses on child agency in domestic labor migration may be unwelcomed in a context where advocacy groups have premised their work on a powerful image of the child as a victim. As the Development Research Centre (DRC) has observed, there is often a significant gap between how children see their own experiences of migration and how they are commonly represented as “vulnerable” and in need of rescue and assistance by child welfare agencies (2005). This chapter discusses the paradoxes in the politics of representation that surround the restavek child in Haiti. Given the power of this context, based on a tension between a tendency of much current research to portray children as agents who construct and actively engage with solutions for their life situations and advocacy-based views of children as vulnerable and in need of outside aid and assistance, how can research authentically seek out and represent children’s perspectives, as the current trend in childhood studies suggests? What might a focus on restavek children’s experiences of mobility mean for broadening our understanding of mobility and migration in children’s lives? This chapter focuses on both the problems of representation and potential themes of analysis in child migration that may offer new insight into the dilemmas of seeking balanced and interconnected social understanding and social change for migrant children.

Background In recent years, Haiti has become recognized as one among a number of nations in which a system of child domestic labor, though illegal, is widely practiced and integrated within sociocultural and economic frameworks. Children are sent by parents or caretakers to perform unpaid domestic service in the homes of other relatives or nonrelatives. Current views and images of restavek that have been widely circulated both within Haiti and internationally represent such children as victims of society, degraded and marginalized, frequently abused both physically and emotionally, and denied basic human rights, such as access to schooling (Cadet, 1998; DeLorme, 2004; NCHR, 2002; Padgett, 2001; Skinner, 2008). Journalist reports, news media, and personal memoirs such as Cadet’s are credited with bringing the situation of the restavek children in Haiti



Diane M. Hoffman

Migrant Children in Haiti

into the international spotlight. Indeed, a major theme in the international press concerns the extent to which the restavek constitute a special kind of social problem that no one recognizes—or, perhaps more correctly, wishes to acknowledge openly. In the international press, the hidden nature of this situation is often conveyed through the use of such descriptive terms as “forgotten” or “invisible,” or children who are like shadows or who live in shadows (“To search for restavek children in Haiti is to search for shadows in a shadowy society. The phenomenon is elusive, because it is both something very open and something very much closed. The resatvek[s] are everywhere but people rarely pay them any attention” [Sontag, 1990]).1 In Haiti, the term restavek itself is so socially opprobrious as to have spawned a whole number of more acceptable ways of referring to such children, as in ti moun qui rete ak moun, “little people who live with others.” People—including the children themselves—may refer to their situation as “living with an aunt,” “staying with relatives,” “being away at school,” or “temporarily helping another family” (Janak, 2000), all of which are polite ways of saying that the children in question are restavek. Though the term is considered shameful, it is also increasingly heard both within Haiti and internationally, and has come to be associated with powerful images of “child slavery,” “forced labor,” or “children in servitude” (Anderson et al., 1990). On the international scene, according to some, the image of Haiti is fast becoming one of “martyred children” (Brand, 2004: 49). A national-level critique of the restavek system by former president Aristide and his wife called it an affront to human rights and an impediment to social and democratic development. As Chin points out, the restavek child, as an international symbol of the ultimate in child bondage and exploitation, has had obvious political value, as it has allowed Haiti to position itself as being on the side of internationalized discourses of social justice, modernity, and democracy at the same time as it has allowed the state to connect the persistence of the restavek system with external, global economic marginalization: Within Haiti, the state attempts to mobilize the figure of the restavek to expose the ways in which Haitian society remains undemocratic and anti-modern. Beyond Haiti, these same restaveks are used by the state in an argument that globalization itself creates the inequality and misery that restaveks embody; thus the ultimate blame for Haiti’s democratic problem lies at the feet of the global community. (Chin, 2003: 316)



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Yet within Haiti, there is clear and understandable sensitivity and disagreement as to how the restavek should be characterized and what role international organizations should play, if any, in documenting and/or intervening in this social practice. Obviously not all Haitians view the restavek practice as objectionable, since it is so widespread. Even among those that do, some are highly sensitive to what they view as exaggerated reports of slavery and abuse that dominate much of the international media. As a parent, quoted in Brand (2004: 49), said, On the radio, they speak as though all the children in service are abused. But the fact that a family sends their child into service does not mean they don’t love him. The child’s parents have a lot of courage to send away their child in hopes that the child will escape the family’s miserable circumstances. While abuse does take place, they claim, it is a misrepresentation to say that it characterizes the majority of cases; the restavek system obviously satisfies a needed function in Haitian society, where education is scarce and poverty is rampant. For others, including those working for international human rights organizations and many faith-based social activist groups, this position reflects either denial, lack of awareness, or efforts to hide the evident reality of widespread and systemic child maltreatment. The latter sentiment is expressed via ongoing activist educational campaigns being waged through the media, as well as efforts to develop a grassroots antirestavek movement. Parent and community education, social support services for restavek and former restavek children, and ongoing projects to develop schools in poor communities are all seen as viable and helpful ways of generating change in the social practices and beliefs that support the restavek system. The questions of how to represent the restavek and how the restavek themselves have come to be a currency within the politics of representation which are closely tied to projects of national development and globalization belie the fact that there has been scant academic research on restavek children. There have been only a few major studies of note; the most recent by the Norwegian Institute FAFO (Sommerfelt, 2002) in collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Social Affairs, the UNDP, UNICEF, and other organizations. It was followed by another study by USAID (Smucker and Murray, 2004) that focused on child trafficking



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within Haiti and the Dominican Republic but which contained a significant amount of information on restavek. In addition, restavek are mentioned in, but are not the focus of, other research reports, such as a study conducted by USAID on Positive Development in Haitian Youth (2007), and other surveys and reports commissioned by Haitian agencies and organizations, such as the Institut Psycho-Sociale de la Famille (IPSOFA, 1998). Across these reports the number of restavek varies widely, not only because of their hidden and disparaged status (and thus the likelihood that they will be underreported) but because they constitute a subset of a larger number of children who live outside the home for a variety of other reasons. While a figure of 300,000 (representing about one in ten children) appears rather consistently in media and activist reports (such as NCHR, 2002), Sommerfelt (2002), in using a measure that explored the likelihood of being a restavek as related to the existence of a combination of vulnerabilities, placed the number of restavek in Haiti closer to 173,000, representing about 8.2 percent of the child population aged 5–17 years. USAID observed that the number has varied widely from about 100,000 to 400,000 and that in fact there is little or no reliable information on the actual incidence of servant children. Indeed, as Sommerfelt (2002: 32) observes, even the combination of the most extreme conditions—absence of parents, lack of education, and high workloads—does not necessarily qualify a child as a restavek, because the motivations of the parties involved are not always easy to discern. A number of trends are evident across existing studies that contradict the images of restavek commonly found in the international media. Though restavek are often portrayed by the media as residing predominantly in urban areas of the capital, Port-au-Prince, in fact they are also found in other parts of the country, including rural areas (Sommerfelt, 2002). Furthermore, though it is commonly believed that most restavek are girls, this is true only in the capital, where the population of girls is close to 72 percent. However, nationwide, the female/male ratio is 59 percent girls to 41 percent boys (ibid.). Lack of awareness of the true gender distribution speaks both to lack of research on the topic and to a likely generalization of the urban restavek experience to the larger population. Furthermore, contrary to the popular image of the restavek as an orphaned child, 80 percent of child domestics have living parents. Finally, contrary to long-standing images of a poor rural child sent to labor in a wealthy urban family, current data indicate that the poverty levels of the receiving families are often only marginally better than



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those of the sending families. Lower-class households are thus in fact far more likely to have restavek than bourgeois households, where paid help is preferred (Smucker and Murray, 2004: 30).

To understand the nature of the restavek as a particular form of child experience in contemporary Haiti, one must explore it first as a form of culturally constructed childhood, and second as a form of childhood in which the experience of mobility is central. While parents will frequently say they send children away because they are “not capable” of taking care of them, indicating economic constraints as primary in their reasoning, these economic considerations are often tied to other notions regarding kinship, education, or training—all essential elements in a cultural view of childhood. There is traditionally a great deal of emphasis on the value of an “education” that is to be attained by not growing up in the care of one’s biological parent(s). Sending a child away, from a parental perspective, is often about giving a child a chance to “move up” in the world and to attain capabilities that cannot be attained if the child remains at home (Sommerfelt, 2002: 70–72). Haiti does not appear to be unique in this regard. In her study of fosterage in Sierra Leone, for example, Bledsoe (1990) observed simultaneous in-fostering and out-fostering which had explicit considerations of social status, educational opportunity, and general social “development” behind them, with the latter evoking an ideal of a child being pulled up to the level of the family in which he or she was in-fostered. The main point is that it is not just a question of sending a child to a different family for formal education (which, though commonly held as the hoped-for outcome, is often unlikely), but for the informal training or guidance (formasion) that can be obtained through a non-parental household. Informal learning can include a variety of skills, as well as the experience of becoming accustomed to differing norms of family governance and discipline and—for males—the acquisition of a “serious” disposition that can counter the dangers of vagabondisme, a gloss for a socially useless person, a good-for-nothing (ibid.: 60). There is a strong emphasis on the idea that a child’s chances of succeeding are greater in a new home (ibid.: 75). It is certainly possible that a cultural discourse on the “opportunity” that a restavek placement provides may be a post-hoc way of rationalizing a decision based purely on economics. However, as Sommerfelt suggests, sensitive inquiry into sending parents’ psychology would be needed to determine the interaction of such



Child mobility: The missing framework


rationalizations with the powerful cultural draw of a hoped-for education, of whatever sort. Furthermore, in cultures where children’s work and services are considered part of the normal practice of childhood, as they are in many parts of the global South, numerous questions arise concerning how to understand child labor in the broader context of children’s lives: Isolating work from this field gives a distorted picture of complex patterns of reciprocity and long-term support that provide the wider context in which children exercise their agency and base the practical reasons for their choices and actions . . . In devising these approaches, children are now increasingly seen as active participants if not social agents in their own right . . . (Nieuwenhuys, 2005: 169) In Haiti, the practice of child migration is tied to distinctive cultural traditions of kinship. Kinship relations are not strictly defined in terms of blood; they can also be created through ties of shared labor, food, residence, and guardianship. Child domestic labor thus takes place in a complex cultural landscape. In some cases there are clear distinctions between the child servant and other members of the family; in others their labor is part of a larger and more diffuse pattern of relationships in which work and affect are not necessarily at odds: adults may explicitly value or seek children’s labor while also desiring children’s company. As is conveyed quite powerfully in the film Children of Shadows by Karen Kramer (2001), parents speak proudly of children staying with them or living with them while working hard for them, evoking a complex and culturally nuanced mixture of attachment as well as clear dependency on the instrumental value of child’s labor. It would appear that while the children clearly do suffer (sometimes from the workload itself, sometimes from outright abuse, and sometimes from deeply missing their parents and siblings), the restavek situation must also be seen within a cultural context that emphasizes its non-formal educational, kin-based, and affective dimensions, and not simply one that views it as exploiting children’s labor. Indeed, from the sending family perspective (and perhaps from the child’s perspective—to be discussed below) it may well be precisely because of its ties to notions of education and training in a broad sense (not only or merely formal education) that the restavek system may continue to have cultural weight in Haitian society, despite the ways in which children (and parents) may in fact suffer from it.



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Cultural traditions of extended kinship networks and fluidity in marital and domestic arrangements, combined with economic scarcity and pressures from labor demands or lack of available schooling, mean that the experience of children living apart from biological parents in Haiti is relatively common. One might argue that movement among different households and places of residence, whether for purposes of fostering, informal learning, education, and/or work, rather than growing up in one fixed, natal household, is in fact the defining experience of Haitian children and youth today. Most existing research shows very high incidences of Haitian children living away from biological parents in other households; Smucker and Murray (2004: 17) estimate that about onefifth of all Haitian children do so. According to Justesen and Verner (2007: 3), using data from the first Living Conditions Survey of Haiti, only one in three children (aged 0–14) lives with both biological parents. It is not clear in any case whether living with one or two biological parents necessarily correlates with residence in the natal home. Justesen and Verner (2007) also suggest that there are strong positive motivating factors for domestic migration among Haitian youth, since such migration increases the probability of being employed. However, high levels of migration have affected family structure, with more than half of all households headed by females (2007: 33). While migration to urban centers appears to be most common and offers increased educational and employment opportunities, migration patterns in Haiti also include urban to rural movement as well as rural to rural movement. Couples who are separated, for example, will send children to one another; some parents will send children to the countryside from an urban area so that the parent can work (Brand, 2004: 41). Parents will also voluntarily attempt to place children in orphanages if they feel incapable of providing adequately for them; some of these children eventually are adopted internationally. However, because we lack studies of restavek mobility in Haiti, it is difficult to determine with what frequency such children actually change residences, move from a residence to the street (or vice versa), and move between an orphanage or other care facility and a restavek situation. It is commonly said that the population of street children in Haiti contains large numbers of former restavek who left because they could not tolerate the abusive living conditions at the home where they were staying. Anecdotally, movement appears to be quite common. For example, in his personal account, Cadet tells of moving multiple times, on his



Agents or victims?: Conceptualizing child agency

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When Jocelyne’s mother had no more money to feed her, Jocelyne, then 7 or 8, was sent to live with her father, and then with her grandmother. She was able to go to school. When she was 12 or 13, she had to leave the village to go to work in the capital. Her grandmother sent her to a lady’s home where Jocelyne did the housework, cooking, fetching of water, and babysitting. But then Jocelyne fell ill, and the lady sent her back to her grandmother’s. Next, Jocelyne spent 18 months in the countryside working in another home. But she had to leave there as well . . . She had to go back to the capital to look for work . . . . A friend’s uncle welcomed her, but Jocelyne fell sick and the uncle sent her away from fear of catching her illness. Now 15-anda-half years old, Jocelyne is alone in the city. She has not seen her parents in many years, and she knows they cannot afford health care for her . . . (Brand, 2004: 44) According to the principal of an alternative school in Port-au-Prince for restavek children, the restavek placement is nearly always conditional and unstable, subject to the whims of the host family as well as the child’s own ability to tolerate the circumstances (Brand, 2004: 48). Increasingly, research on child laborers in diverse cultural contexts emphasizes not children’s victimization, but the agency and resourcefulness that they bring to their situations (Camacho, 1999; Davies, 2008; Klocker, 2007; Leinaweaver, 2007; Robson et al., 2007). While recognizing the existence of structural constraints in many children’s lives, the thrust of much of this research is to deconstruct the structure/agency dichotomy and to show how children are able to exercise agency even within situations in which their choices and freedom appear highly constrained. Analyzing the situation of child domestic workers in Tanzania, Klocker (2007) suggests the construct of “thin agency.” This idea recognizes that while there are clearly important structural factors such as poverty and gender socialization that constrain girls’ life chances, it is still necessary to account for the fact that the girls insisted that they had not been pressured or forced into becoming domestic workers. They viewed the decision as their own. Klocker writes the following:



own, in search of relatives or better living situations. Personal accounts of restavek cited in Sommerfelt (2002) illustrate numerous changes of residence. The following account is typical in capturing the flux of a restavek’s experience:

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Klocker concludes that Tanzanian girls do not become domestic workers out of weakness or ignorance, but because they honestly believe that this decision offers better outcomes for themselves and their families (ibid.: 92). Similarly, Camacho (1999) found that child domestic workers in Manila regarded the decision to migrate to assume positions as domestic workers as their own. A similar emphasis has been noted by Jacquemin (2004), who found that even in situations where children have very few choices they reject being made objects of others’ decision making. Leinaweaver (2007) describes the case of Paty, a young woman whose story illustrates how mobility can be a form of agency for children in times of severe emotional and financial duress. Findings of the Development Research Centre (DRC, 2008) also emphasize the extent to which children play an active role in taking decisions to migrate, noting that it is simply inaccurate to conflate children’s migration with child trafficking. Given the paucity of ethnographic research on the Haitian child domestic worker, much remains unknown about the experiences and perceptions of restavek children and the kinds and varieties of actions and responses made by restavek children to their situation. The dominant image of the restavek promulgated by media and social activist accounts emphasizes the child’s passive victimization. The restavek is portrayed as a child who is trafficked or sent away, without a voice and against his or her will, to a family where he or she remains a virtual prisoner, immobilized and restrained, without any social contacts or social networks. Existing research and anecdotal accounts do illustrate cases of children who are “moved,” apparently as objects in interfamily gift-giving or via transactional arrangements, and increasingly through trafficking (Sommerfelt, 2002: 36); there are also cases of extreme mistreatment in which children do suffer from what might be termed a virtual social imprisonment. However, overall the existing research paints a rather different and more diverse picture of restavek children, many of whom are in fact independently mobile. They make decisions on their own, take initiative to move from one situation to another, use social networks to attempt to arrange new living



Indeed, focusing only on the downtrodden elements of the Tanzanian child domestic worker’s character, her strengths, abilities, and knowledge are either overlooked, or considered insignificant in relation to her context. (2007: 91)

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The world of Haitian children includes a growing segment that might be described as miniature adults, leaving home, handling money, and making their own way in the world. Many such children are runaways, especially restavek children. . . . Some take initiative to live in other homes including households located far away or across the [Haitian-Dominican] border. (Smucker and Murray, 2004: 33) Sonsonn, a street kid in Mirebalais, left his rural home after his mother died, when he was 10 years old. His father was unable to send him to school and there was little food available. He walked to the town of Mirebalais of his own volition and lived from various street activities. He slept outside on the ground for six years. The past three years he has slept inside people’s houses in exchange for domestic services . . . (ibid.: 34) Smucker and Murray observe that children also run away from home and seek out restavek placements when they have problems at home: This is a recurring theme in the placement of children with others— the runaway child who goes to the house of an acquaintance, oftentimes a relative. This pattern is reported in both rural and urban areas. Such departures are generally precipitated by conflict at home and may include flight from physical abuse. In urban areas, many runaway children are fleeing abusive restavek placements rather than their own homes. In other cases, a child may take initiative to leave home due to acute poverty and food shortage, especially if the child is not at school. This researcher repeatedly encountered children and young men who had left home as children—on their own initiative. (2004: 34) Similarly, it has been observed that children can and will initiate moves to new families when a parent dies or when other circumstances at home become difficult to bear:



situations, and generally exert extraordinary efforts to deal with their situations:

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Children initiate their moves to new families themselves, and offer their services, well aware that the stay will entail domestic work . . . . In other cases, children initiated their own moves after already having been introduced to domestic service, searching for new employers/ guardians. Children thus try to change employer/guardian when they are mistreated or unhappy about their current situation, and try to improve it by finding another, gentler guardian. (Sommerfelt, 2002: 65) In my pilot focus group interviews with 60 restavek children in the Cayes area of Southwest Haiti, the majority viewed leaving the natal home to become restavek as a chance to improve their living situation. Despite the clear structural constraints of poverty, social discrimination, and what are typically characterized as authoritarian and antidemocratic social systems in Haiti (an influence that extends to child-rearing), the children felt that they participated in the decision to become restavek.2 At the same time, a clear majority also felt that their current placement was not all they had hoped for and that they suffered from physical abuse; many stated that they would prefer to go to an orphanage if they could arrange it. For most, the lack of access to schooling was the major disappointment. These narratives illustrate a much higher degree of child agency than is commonly ascribed to restavek. Children do participate in the decision to become restavek; and, further, they decide on their own to take action to deal with circumstances that they find unbearable, often through running away, trying to locate relatives, seeking out another placement, or turning to the street. It is important to recognize this agency because it counters a trend in the international media and in social activist accounts of the restavek experience that paints a one-sided picture of the restavek child as a helpless victim. The truth is that there is likely to be great variability in the experiences of restavek: In some cases, outside children are treated almost as if they were informally adopted. At the other end of the spectrum, outside children are treated very badly, virtually as little slaves. A large and growing number of children constitute a distinct class of child servants separated from parents and living with strangers. In between are a broad range of arrangements and patterns of treatment that reflect different circumstances, temperaments, kinship ties, and culturally mediated arrangements for giving and taking children. (Sommerfelt, 2002: 35)



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The recognition of variability in restavek experience and the agency that children bring to their situations is not intended, however, to ignore the fact that such children often experience living conditions that are harsh and do not accord them “equal status” within the families in which they reside. As has been observed, restavek will typically sleep on the floor, perhaps on a piece of old carpet or cardboard, placed in a spot in the kitchen or at the foot of a bed of one of the family’s other children. They rarely eat the same food as the rest of the family. They do significantly more work than other children in the home, often carrying adult workloads, and they are subject to continuous public and private humiliation and corporal punishment, as well as to sexual abuse (Sommerfelt, 2002: 35–36). Given these conditions, arguably it is even more important to recognize the agency of children who must endure such circumstances. Recognizing their agency is not denying that they suffer; nor is it to sanction the social structural inequalities that make the restavek system possible in the first place. Rather, it is to point the way to a reconceptualization of the restavek child in a more positive light, to portray the child as a person who has real capacities, skills, intelligence, and personal fortitude that can make him or her an asset to society, rather than a victim or a drain on a society that is itself already in chaos. In my view, it is this kind of broad social change in attitudes regarding such children that points the way toward genuine social change, rather than the perpetuation of images of weakness and helplessness that are already too much in place.

The slippery slope: The politics of representation The missing element in many portrayals of restavek to date is not only a perspective that seeks to uncover the agency of restavek, but also a perspective that highlights children’s own experiences and views. To some extent, these go together, as the “discovery” of agency among children in vulnerable and marginalized situations is in fact nearly impossible when research ignores the perspectives of the child. It is helpful then to think of the debate over child agency as a means to open up the world of the restavek child—to consider new possible understandings of culturally particular and situated views of just what “agency” may look like for children who constitute a highly marginalized social group. As research on child domestic workers and street children in diverse contexts demonstrates, children must be understood as actively participating in the construction of cultures that allow them to sustain



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themselves in often harsh and unforgiving social environments (Davies, 2008). None of this work defends the social structural inequalities in which children find themselves. It does, however, attempt to illustrate the ways in which children can actively create social geographies of survival, as well as engage with globalized approaches to child welfare (Leinaweaver, 2007). For child domestics in Haiti in particular, a greater focus on children’s lived experiences can lead to a deeper appreciation of the role of migration and movement generally in restavek children’s lives. Movement is significant not only because physical migration often constitutes an essential element of becoming restavek, but also in a symbolic sense, as movement through social networks, positions of visibility and invisibility, spaces of liminality, care, sharing, learning, and moral/ political relations. Nieuwenhuys (2003) has observed that as children move across places and nonplaces of childhood where they are separated from the adult world, they experience opportunities to create their own structures of signification. Greater ethnographic attention to restavek children’s lived experiences may reveal much about how children use the social spaces of their environment in their daily lives, as they move through public and private domains, safe and dangerous places. My pilot field observations in a Haitian community contain numerous notations and questions about how space functions in daily life, as children move to places where they come together to collect water, for example, or travel along pathways across community spaces where they may negotiate a delicate balance between visibility and invisibility. Movement of persons in community spaces clearly communicates messages, even though no words may be spoken; such messages constitute different forms of symbolic communication that have yet to be tapped as resources in the understanding of children’s experiences. Ethnographic research focusing on children’s perceptions of their lives as restavek has yet to be conducted, so we lack adequate knowledge of these fundamental questions. Yet, in proposing to do such research, one immediately encounters a minefield of difficulties and objections. As Reynolds et al. (2006: 295) observe, it is not easy to undertake academic research on a topic that has been widely promulgated from an activist perspective. In my own efforts to develop an as yet unfunded research project, I have encountered strong doubts and questions as to whether research on restavek is even appropriate or ethically defensible, given that we do know that some—perhaps many—children are suffering in their daily lives as restavek. How can one conceive of “doing research”



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when one’s population is so vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment? One reviewer for a funding proposal I wrote suggested that the topic was just too sensitive to do at all; this has not been an uncommon response. Alternatively, it has been suggested that only some kinds of research are justified, such as activist or action research. Given this context, even if research were justified, is it possible to approach any sort of objectivity in data collection when the phenomena under consideration are intrinsically highly emotionally laden? Others have said that the focus on restavek agency slants research toward the “good” cases of restavek. I have found it extremely difficult, in fact, to make a case for focusing on children’s agency in the case of restavek, as any mention of agency on the part of children has been interpreted as a defense of the restavek system, a culturally biased view of a White American who sees “choice” in everything, or an effort that will undo activist efforts to address children’s genuine “needs.” In fact, what I have faced in discussing and framing this project with numerous audiences is what I have come to consider the politics of representation. In the case of restavek, the politics of representation have worked powerfully to position the child as a subaltern, a victim without voice, who speaks only through the voice of the child advocate or the international media—both of whom have co-opted the child as a symbol of the social and political repression of Haitian society and the global systemic politics that have long been operating in Haiti. This is, of course, a politically justifiable position. But it is also a position that, ironically, silences the very voices and perspectives that it purports to make known. Only some stories are “told,” and these are the stories that confirm the popular, stereotyped images of the child as victim, not the child who participated in the decision to become a restavek, who tried to change his or her situation, and who aspired to learn as a way to overcome his or her desperate circumstances. There are so many other stories that do not get told—the voices of children who are engaging actively with the structures of repression that they face. In my view, it would be better to tell the latter stories so that a new image of the restavek as a child who is capable can become part of the public discourse. It is an ironic testimony to the power of the politics of representation in the case of restavek that an emphasis on child agency among restavek can be rendered oppositional to advocacy for restavek. It is also important to recognize that when it comes to research on children in vulnerable situations, it is not fundamentally a question of moving to a space beyond the politics of representation; as James



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(2007: 268) reminds us, “. . . all research has to be acknowledged as a process of representation.” Prioritizing children’s voices and perspectives does not mean that we are somehow free from the distortions of representation; it does mean that they must be acknowledged as culturally contextualized and that their authenticity must also be questioned (James, 2007: 265). The advantage of the ethnographic perspective is that it focuses on everyday and ordinary “life on the ground,” where cultural practices and experiences reconstitute the ideals, theories, and development plans that may have been framed by others more distant from children’s immediate experiences (Reynolds et al., 2006: 295). While childhood research in anthropology has advocated models that foreground children’s perspectives, it remains to be seen how such an approach will play out in the exploration of child domestic workers in Haiti, whose lives are already powerfully constituted by the politics of representation shaped by numerous agencies, institutions, individuals, and global entities. Attentiveness, which is a great virtue, and which the children appear to have been gifted with, is much required on the part of their interlocutors. It might then be possible to construct knowledge of migrant domestic laborer children’s experiences that neither pathologizes their experiences nor denies the necessity of compassionate understanding, aid, and social change.

Notes 1. Use of the terms such as “invisible” is of course not limited to the situation of child domestic laborers in Haiti, as a cursory glance at the international child labor literature demonstrates (see UNICEF, 2006). Invisibility, however, as a frame for examining and exploring children’s experiences poses its own difficulties, as it always implicitly raises the question, “invisible for whom?” Certainly, such children are not “invisible” to each other when they meet at places where they collect water; and once an observer is sensitized to the context, restavek children in fact appear highly visible, particularly as objects of social assistance and international human rights campaigns. Moreover, it is likely that children can strategically use visibility and invisibility in their daily lives for multiple purposes; thus, despite its common links to powerlessness, visibility/invisibility can also be a strategic way of asserting power in social situations or defining a “safe space” apart from adult interference and gaze. 2. Some might say that the children “rationalized” their decision, or attempted to make it appear as if they had a say when they had none. Such rationalizations would be understandable, perhaps as a psychological defense mechanism. A more complete understanding of the situation is ultimately impossible without more extensive and culturally sensitive fieldwork.



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L. Anderson, E. J. Kelley, and Z. K. Kinnunen (1990) Restavek: Child Domestic Labor in Haiti (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee). C. Bledsoe (1990) “The Politics of Children: Fosterage and the Social Management of Fertility Among the Mende of Sierra Leone”, in W. P. Handwerker (ed.) Births and Power: Social Change and the Politics of Reproduction (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), 81–100. E. Brand (2004) How Poverty Separates Parents and Children: A Challenge to Human Rights (ATD Fourth World), http://www.atd-fourthworld.org/Howpoverty-separates-parents-and.html. Accessed March 2, 2009. J. R. Cadet (1998) Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle Class American (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press). A. Z. Camacho (1999) “Family, Child Labour and Migration: Child Domestic Workers in Metro Manila”, Childhood, (6): 57–73. E. Chin (2003) “Children out of bounds in globalizing times”, Postcolonial Studies, 6(3): 309–325. M. Davies (2008) “A childish Culture?: Shared Understandings, Agency, and Intervention: An Anthropological Study of Street Children in Northwest Kenya”, Childhood, 3(15): 309–330. J. Delorme (2004) Haiti: Tarnished Children (Brussels: International Confederation of Free Trade Unions). Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalization, and Poverty (2005) Voices of Migrants: A Better Understanding of How Life Is. http://www. migrationdrc.org/publications/other_publications/Voices_of_Children.pdf. Accessed March 3, 2009. Development Research Center on Migration, Globalization, and Poverty (2008) Independent Child Migration: Introducing Children’s Perspectives (Briefing no. 11), August, http://www.migrationdrc.org/publications/briefing_papers/BP11.pdf. Accessed March 3, 2009. IPSOFA (Institut Psycho-Sociale de la Famille) (1998) Restavec: La domesticité juvénile en Haïti (Port-au-Prince, Haiti: IPSOFA). M. Jacquemin (2004) “Can the Language of Rights Get hold of the Complex Realities of Child Domestic Work? The Case of Young Domestic Workers in Abidjan, Ivory Coast”, Childhood, 2(13): 389–406. A. James (2007) “Giving Voice to Children’S Voices: Practices and Problems, Pitfalls and Potentials”, American Anthropologist, 109(2): 261–272. T. Janak (2000) “Haiti’s ‘Restavec’ Slave Children: Difficult Choices, Difficult Lives . . . yet . . . Lespwa fe viv”, International Journal of Children’s Rights, 8: 321–331. M. Justesen and D. Verner (2007) “Factors Impacting Youth Development in Haiti” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4110, http://papers. ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=956490. N. Klocker (2007) “An example of ‘Thin’ Agency: Child Domestic Workers in Tanzania”, in R. Panelli, S. Punch, and E. Robson (eds) Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth: Young Rural Lives (New York: Routledge), 83–94. K. Kramer (2001) Children of Shadows. www.karenkramerfilms.com.



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J. B. Leinaweaver (2007) “Choosing to Move: Child Agency on Peru’s Margins”, Childhood, 14: 375–392. National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) (2002) “Restavek No More: Eliminating Child Slavery in Haiti: A Report by the National Coalition for Haitian Rights”, http://www.nchr.org.hrp/restavek/report_es.htm. Accessed March 8, 2008. O. Nieuwenhuys (2003) “Growing up Between Places of Work and Non-places of Childhood: The Uneasy Relationships”, in K. F. Olwig and E. Gullov (eds.) Children’s Places: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (New York: Routledge), 99–118. O. Nieuwenhuys (2005) “The Wealth of Children: Reconsidering the Child Labour Debate”, in J. Qvortrup (ed.) Studies in Modern Childhood: Society, Agency, Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 167–183. T. Padgett (2001) “Of Haitian bondage”, Time Magazine (March 5) http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,999363,00.html. Accessed March 10, 2009. P. Reynolds, O. Nieuwenhuys, and K. Hansen (2006) “Refractions of Children’s Rights in Development Practice: A View From Anthropology—Introduction”, Childhood, 3(13): 291–302. E. Robson, S. Bell, and N. Klocker (2007) “Conceptualizing Agency in the Lives and Actions of Rural Young People”, in R. Panelli, S. Punch, and E. Robson (eds) Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth: Young Rural Lives (New York: Routledge), 135–148. E. B. Skinner (2008) A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-face with Modern-Day Slavery (New York: Free Press). G. R. Smucker and G. F. Murray (2004) The Uses of Children: A Study of Trafficking in Haitian Children (Port-au-Prince, Haiti: USAID). T. Sommerfelt (2002) Child Domestic Labor in Haiti: Characteristics, Contexts, and Organization of Children’s Residence, Relocation and Work (Oslo: FAFO Institute for Applied Social Science). D. Sontag (1990) “The Littlest Slaves in Haiti: If a Child is Only Poor and Hungry he is One of the Lucky Ones”, Miami Herald (Tropic magazine), December 30. UNICEF (2006) The State of the World’s Children: Excluded and Invisible.



Diane M. Hoffman

At the Crossroads of Childhood, Media, and Migration Liesbeth de Block and David Buckingham

Introduction Cosmopolitan urban centers such as London with their rich mix of peoples, cultures, and languages are the site of multiple crossroads: not an intersection between a singular local and global road but a meeting point of different places, peoples, and affiliations. The issue is no longer the relationship between a “host” community and the newcomer, but how people from many different parts of the world interact with each other both locally and globally. In this chapter we aim to address these multiple crossroads and the specific role that media consumption and production can play in children’s experiences of them (de Block and Buckingham, 2007). As migration research takes a more empirical turn with an increasing number of studies addressing the lived experience of globalization and migration, attention to the role of media is growing (Tufte, 2002; Wood and King, 2001). How people actually use global media products in their social and cultural relationships is recognized as being more complex than early models of “cultural imperialism” implied. The media industries of Japan, India, and Brazil, for example, are challenging the domination of US media products (Tunstall, 1977). New communications technologies are encouraging different, more accelerated social, emotional, and economic connections locally and globally and facilitating changing forms of migration (Castles and Davidson, 2000; Castles and Miller, 2003; Karim, 2003; Georgiou, 2006; Vertovec, 2004). Transnational parenting, for example, where families, separated through migrant working patterns, “do parenting” (Orellana et al., 2001; Yeoh et al., 2005) across national borders and continents using new 54



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communications technologies to keep in regular contact, is a growing phenomenon. At the same time there has been a major change in the ways in which children’s lives are conceptualized and studied (Jenks, 2005). They are increasingly recognized as agents able to negotiate new friendships and affect family relations and social contacts (Prout and James, 1997). If children are seen as active participants in social and institutional processes and relationships, what role do they play in migration? With changing patterns of migration, children’s roles and responsibilities take on new forms at different stages, ages, and locations. Issues of belonging, social cohesion, participation, and citizenship are central to these debates. Media play a key role in these negotiations. Media play a central role in children’s lives, especially in the formation and maintenance of social relations and identities (Buckingham, 1996). How children use media is now understood to be inseparable from the social structures and physical contexts of viewing, production, and subsequent social exchanges (Buckingham, 1993a, b). Child audiences are no longer seen as passive recipients of media messages but as active media users, adapting and “reading” media in relation to their social contexts and emotional needs. For migrant children, local media has a profound influence on children’s local connections (friends, school, neighborhood) as well as the maintenance and development of global and transnational identities (friends, family, past, and future) (de Block and Buckingham, 2007). Exploring the relationships between migration, childhood, and media, we address the following questions: – What roles do different media play in children’s experiences of the crossroads of local and global relationships and connections? – How does the study of children’s use of media offer researchers insights into their experiences of migration? – What are the possibilities for participatory research using media to explore children’s experiences of migration?

Two projects: Television as Shared Space and Children in Communication about Migration (CHICAM) Our discussion is based on two studies. The first was a small localized study with children in an inner-city primary school in London (de Block, 2002, 2008). The second study built on this experience but extended it to a six-country European research project, Children in



Liesbeth de Block and David Buckingham

At the Crossroads of Childhood, Media, and Migration

Communication about Migration (CHICAM) (www.chicam.org). The children in both projects included both refugees and migrants.1 The first project examined the ways in which a small group of 10 migrant and refugee children (between the ages of 8 and 11) and their friends and families used everyday talk about television to facilitate new social relationships and maintain diasporic family connections. This project focused on television as the most used medium for this age group, while the second project included digital media. In both projects media-related talk crossed media forms, genres, languages, and generations. It was integrated into existing media-inspired playground games as well as forming the inspiration for new role-playing games. It became the basis of banter and repartee between the children, finding outlets ranging from small gestures and single words and phrases to long-running role-plays and storylines. It was part of dinner-time conversations and central to family relations. For the children in the study television and media talk became a shared space where cross-cultural communication was possible, especially when there was little else that they shared. Data collection included participant observations, drawings, notes of conversations and thoughts, and semi-structured and unstructured individual and group interviews with children, family members, and school staff, sometimes using an interpreter. In the course of the 18-month fieldwork, observations and informal “chats” were carried out in the playground, the local neighborhoods, homes, classrooms, dinner halls, and corridors. The research focused on two friendship groups. The first group included four girls aged 8 (from Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Wales/Grenada). The second group included four boys aged 11 (from Ethiopia, Portugal/Angola, and Kenya).2 The study also followed several children who were on the fringes of these central groups: boys and girls from Turkey (Kurdish), Kosovo, Palestine, Somalia, and Bangladesh as well as children born in London both of white English families and of families who had moved to the United Kingdom one or two generations ago. Some of the programs and genres that became central to the research were global animation products such as The Simpsons and The Powerpuff Girls; children’s dramas like Sabrina the Teenage Witch; soaps; news broadcasts, including local, national, and transnational as well as global (CNN and Al Jazeera) news; transnational comedy; children’s programming; and sports programs such as football and wrestling (WWF). In addition, the children were asked to make videos. The aim was to take advantage of the ease of digital video cameras in order to gain their



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own perspective on their lives, friendships, and neighborhoods. It also became a way through which the children began to share past experiences with each other and with the researcher. Making simple drawn animations enabled them to tell and compare their stories. Filming in the neighborhood or playground allowed research access to significant locations and people, making more detailed interviewing possible later. The second project arose partly from this work and partly from other research conducted in the Centre for the Study of Children Youth and Media3 and used similar ethnographic methods. It was funded by the European Commission (Framework 5) and included six partners across Europe.4 Each partner set up a media production club for migrant children. CHICAM moved from researching children’s uses of media to exploring how media production might allow children to represent and to share their experiences of migration. A significant new element in CHICAM was the use of the Internet to facilitate sharing of the young people’s video productions, both between the young people involved in the project and (eventually) among a wider audience (CHICAM, 2002, 2004). The more overtly political objective was to explore how the content and processes of such communication could inform policy initiatives in the areas of migration and childhood by making children’s voices heard in the wider public arena. Indeed, three of the specific research themes were closely connected to social policy areas: friendship and peer relations, school/work, and family. The fourth theme was concerned with the media themselves: how do children use the “languages” of media, both to create their own audio-visual “statements” and to communicate with each other and with adults across cultural boundaries? The media clubs were after-school clubs based in schools and community centers. All the children attending the clubs were recently arrived refugees or migrants between the ages of 10 and 14. They came from a wide range of countries. The club in the United Kingdom, for example, comprised children from Angola, Kenya, Somalia, Sierra Leone/Guinea, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Lithuania, Russia, and Colombia. The children’s families therefore all had very different experiences of migration and motivations for migrating (Brah, 1996). Each club was organized by a researcher and a media educator. As with the first project, data were collected through interviews, observations, and group and individual activities in order to gain an understanding of the children’s lives, interests, and media experiences. Most importantly, the gathering of data centered around the production of the videos. Preproduction involved sharing experiences and negotiation about the direction the video would take and why. Production was done either





as a group with different children taking on different roles, demanding much negotiating and sharing of perspectives, or on an individual level offering the possibility for more personal self-representation. The clubs used digital technology for filming, editing, and disseminating material. Although there were some still images, most of the material produced was in the form of short videotapes, often only a couple of minutes long. Many children edited their own productions, while others did so with the assistance of the media educator. Both approaches allowed for further data collection. The children viewed each others’ productions, showed them to friends and family, and posted them on the project intranet. The process of producing and exchanging these videos attempted to create new crossroads between the children’s lives and the wider concerns of policy and practice. The discussion in this chapter draws on the experience of both these projects.

Children and families using media Migrant children are bound to be experiencing a media “diet” similar to other children in comparable locations. Much of their media consumption is likely to be focused on the mainstream national media and they will also be exposed to global media imported from other countries. But there are many ways in which their media experience is distinct. Here we discuss their media uses in terms of three types: transnational, national, and global. Clearly these categories are not exclusive. National programming includes many global products, especially programs originating in the United States. The same goes for diasporic broadcasting; global broadcasting is not entirely US-based but increasingly includes important Arabic and other regional strands (Barker, 1997; von Feilitzen and Carlsson, 2002). The children, however, did not necessarily differentiate between these different types of broadcasting. For example, using satellite and/or cable television was the norm and the children rarely differentiated between these and national broadcasting when they spoke about what they watched, except when the programs were very specific to their language and country of origin. They preferred to talk about what they watched in a more social sense, stressing who they watched with, when and where viewing took place. Watching with members of the family was an important element of everyday family life. As other research has shown and as we will discuss below, family relationships were often negotiated through television viewing and struggles over control over the main family television set (Gillespie, 1995; Lull, 1988, 1990) were common.



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One of the main roles that television played for the parents was to maintain continuity with their past lives and their countries of origin, to keep both themselves and their children connected (Gillespie, 1995; d’Haenens et al., 2001; Halloran et al., 1995; Hargreaves, 2001; Siew-Peng, 2001). The parents or community are the primary decision makers, illustrating the ways in which the children’s viewing was mediated by wider social aims, stressing past attachments and affiliations. Keeping in contact with the country of origin took different forms: watching news programs, viewing familiar shows they used to enjoy before they moved, and maintaining the mother language. One of the mothers (a Palestinian) in the first project described her emotions when the family got satellite: Before I got satellite I contact my home, or news about my home by newspaper, Arabic newspaper, and little bit when I watch news TV but after I got satellite it’s different because when I got satellite I feel I stay with my home because I watch news about my home, about Arabic, about everything. When I watch TV and there is some news about my home, I call the children and say, ‘Come on, see your country, this is Jerusalem. Look what’s happened there’, to give them an idea about my home. In other cases it was not so much connection with the place of origin itself that was important but the continuation of activities that the family used to enjoy before their migration. For many of the children in our research, satellite TV offered news programs from the home country, melodramas and comedies (mainly watched by mothers and daughters) and family programs watched by the whole family just as they had done in their native country. One Somali-born girl now in London who had been fostered for several years in Italy often watched and tried to involve her mother in viewing an Italian children’s show she used to watch with her foster parents. The important aspect for her was building the emotional bond between her past and her present and particularly with her mother. Television mediated and supported their repairing relationship. But such viewing was not simply about nostalgia. There were cases in which programs showed how life had changed in the country of origin and thus challenged the way that parents continued to live and expected their children to live in their new countries of residence (cf. Aksoy and Robins, 2000; Drotner, 2001). One Albanian girl in the Swedish



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It is really funny. It is about a family, who tries to be as modern as possible. And actually they have modern stuff in their house too. You know, in Albanian families, girls are not allowed to go to disco and stuff, but the girls in this series they go to disco and they are sleeping with guys. They can do anything they like. They can color their hair every day, and the son in the family, he brings Danish, Swedish and English girls every night. Strange! They are like a Swedish family [in an ironic tone]. Along the same lines Aksoy and Robins (2000) argue that, at least in the case of Turkish television channels, media do not offer a homogeneous image of Turkey, catering to traditional (nostalgic) ideas of the “imagined community.” On the contrary, they argue, the commercial channels in particular offer diverse images of modern Turkey: by providing ordinary, even banal, representations of everyday life, they effectively “demythologize” idealized notions of the homeland (see also Aksoy and Robins, 2003; Milikowski, 2001; Robins and Aksoy, 2005). Likewise, Banaji (2006) shows how young British-Asian viewers can use elements in popular Hindi films to help them criticize or challenge various aspects of their traditional culture—and that they may choose these films precisely because the older generation is likely to be less suspicious of them.

Films, videos, and DVDs Watching films on video/DVD was very popular. Again the children’s choices reflected both their cultural origins and their need to build new peer relations and maintain their family links. Hindi films were particularly talked about. The girls—especially those from the Indian subcontinent or with an Islamic background—watched a lot of Hindi films on video. They also mentioned the Indian movie channel B4U. One girl said that she watched the films dubbed into Somali. Others said that they could follow them very easily through the style, music, dancing, and repeated viewings. Again, it was the emotional resonance and family togetherness that appeared to be more important. One Kenyan girl expressed this by saying that “It’s like a true story, not like English films.” The children also focused on Hollywood blockbusters. These were very popular but often it was difficult to know if the children had actually seen the films or merely picked up information about them



CHICAM club described a program featuring an Albanian family as follows:

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to use in their talk with friends. Sometimes this was because they had not appeared on video/DVD yet; but often in fact they never saw the films but relied on trailers, advertisements, and information gleaned from other children. This enabled them to participate in playground games and especially play fighting, demonstrating that the important thing was the social access it might facilitate rather than the film itself. Even very young children in the first project were amazingly adept at learning the main action lines of these films and retelling narratives that they had not seen. Home-produced videos were also an important part of several of the children’s lives. Family events were shared through sending videos between family members, although this was rarely mentioned as an aspect of “media” and appeared to form a different category, more akin to the exchange of private letters. One Kurdish family commissioned a local video company to document their son’s initiation celebrations. The narrative of the film dwelt on key locations of the family’s memories and present life. Shots of a waterfall near their home in Turkey mixed with the local park in north London. The preparation for the celebrations of food, hairdressers, and clothes all centered on their symbol for the future, the person who was at the front line in negotiating these crossroads: their young son.

Learning language For most families the issue of language maintenance was crucial both practically for family connection and symbolically for connecting the past, the present, and the future. Transnational television offers great possibilities for both adults and children to keep in touch with their native languages and parents generally encouraged this. Several of the children, especially in the younger groups of the first project, recounted the ways in which their parents insisted on them both attending supplementary language classes on the weekends and watching satellite programs, often late at night. The children understood their parents’ need and although many found the pressure too great, they all acknowledged its importance if only to say that they would like to visit their countries of origin at some time in the future for holidays and would like to be able to speak the language. Here Mia talks about maintaining Mandarin: Mia: Yeah, my parents watch the Chinese channel and record it. It comes out at 2 o’clock at the night and they record it. Int: Right so they record it and then watch during the day.





Mia: Yeah. Int: And do you ever watch that with them? Mia: I used to but now there aren’t any good programs. Int: OK. Would they like you to? Mia: Yeah. Int: Why would they like you to? Mia: Because I’m starting to get stuck on Mandarin. If someone said something to me I know what it means in English but I don’t know what it means in Chinese. I know what it means but I just can’t explain it. Int: Mia do you go to Saturday school? Mia: Yes, Sunday school to learn Mandarin. At the same time several parents reported that they actively encouraged their children to watch national television to assist their acquisition of the new language and that they themselves also very effectively used television in this way (Gregory and Williams, 2000). In London we came across only one family where the parents had banned English-speaking television in the home.

TV talk While television played an important role in maintaining informational and emotional ties with the places the children came from, it was also important in helping them (and their families) settle in and find out about the new country and their new friends. The most popular programs for most of the children were ones that they could easily talk about with their peers and that dealt with peer or family relationships: soaps, animations, and reality shows. Declared preferences were also age- and gender-related. This was a very typical adolescent mix of adult and more childish programs that is characteristic of global “youth culture.” The social pressure to participate in this culture was very apparent, and several children talked about needing to watch certain programs in order to “keep in” with their peers at school. One 10-year-old boy from Ethiopia who had arrived in the United Kingdom at the age of 6 put it as clearly as this: [when I was in Ethiopia] I know that there are such things as TV and stuff and other programs and stuff. People talk about them but usually I’m not interested in them and as soon as I came to this country everybody talked about it more than they talk about it in my country.



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In line with other studies of youth audiences (Buckingham, 1993a, b) it was clear that what the children said about what they watched on television defined their identity in terms of age and gender but also in terms of ethnicity and cultural origin. This meant that there were also some programs that they did not admit to watching. Television was therefore used both to negotiate their new identities in their new locations and to negotiate a shared space with their peers across culture, while also operating as an exclusive and often excluding cultural zone. For example, several of the Bengali-speaking children in the first study said that they would talk only to the one Bengali playground supervisor in their school about the films they watched with their families and not with any other adults or children.

News News was also an important aspect of family viewing. Migrants (and indeed many non-migrants) no longer want to rely on one news source but will seek out others that offer different perspectives and devote more time to news from particular regions (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2006 special issue; Banaji and Al-Ghabban, 2006). News acts as both a means of maintaining continuity and a means of keeping in touch. Many families watched several news programs and often the children were very well informed about world events. During the first research project it was a regular occurrence that in the dinner hall there were discussions about the news and world events. In one incident in the first research project, Veton, a Kosovan boy of 10 who had recently come into the school, engaged in an exchange of views with his peers. He was sitting with a group from his class in the dinner hall when one of the girls came and joined them. She cut across all the previous conversation and started talking about the bombing in Kosovo which had started the previous day. The group rapidly joined in. Veton was struggling to participate but was finding it difficult because of the general noise in the hall and the language. The children made connections between what Veton was saying and the reports they had all watched on television. His interpretation was that the Russians were to blame as they had been the only ones to support Milosevic in refusing peace talks. At this point, Jima, also 10 and from Ethiopia, joined the table. He immediately joined in, saying he had been watching the news



So then I started liking it . . . [it’s important because] you can talk to your friends about it.


and he agreed with Veton that the Russians were to blame. He made a connection with the renewed fighting between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Often news from home at times of crisis was deeply disturbing. For Veton it was very important to be able to talk with peers. It allowed him to find connections with the experiences of other children and realize that he was not alone. It allowed the development of a simple and effective public space within which new and old identities and relationships were being formed. This type of dinner-time discussion was not a one-off and could also take the form of a humorous one-upmanship—for example, in this exchange, where the children were nominating personal “heroes”: Samuel: Nelson Mandela. Jima: Shut your mouth man. Stop being sad. Samuel: That’s my country’s president though. Jima: It isn’t your country’s! Samuel: Yeah. That’s where I come from. Jima: You come from Kenya. He’s the president of South Africa, you fool!

Music Music was very important to the children in both projects. Again they had eclectic tastes that included music from their countries of origin as well as global popular music (Bennett, 2000). Many of the children carried their music with them wherever they went. On bus journeys or driving in the car several of the children shared their music choices with the researchers. They liked watching music channels on television, checking out web sites with information about their favorite stars, and talked a lot about them with their peers. In terms both of maintaining culture and of exploring new cultures, music played a similar role to television. However, it was regarded as more the children’s own zone, separated from adult eyes and controls; it therefore took on greater importance especially for the older children. This mix of “global” and “local” musical tastes was reflected across all the media clubs of the second research project (de Block and Rydin, 2006). While variations on global forms such as hip hop were very popular and several videos were made demonstrating the children’s rapping skills, other videos showing more traditional music and musical instruments were equally popular. There was considerable enthusiasm during the Eurovision song contest in 2003 when the Turkish singer,



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Sertab, won. All the children with connections to the region, including Albanians, were very excited. The singer’s mixture of musical styles was widely appreciated, particularly by the children in Greece.

During the time of the first research project, mobile phones were still a luxury item and none of the children and few adults had their own. By the time we were completing the second project, mobile phones were a very important aspect of the children’s lives, allowing them to keep in almost constant contact with friends locally, offering a new independence. The mobile phone also played an important part in family life. One father, a refugee from Sierra Leone now living in London, explained that the mobile phone had transformed his ability to keep in contact with his family: previously he could only contact family members very rarely, whereas now it was on a weekly basis. In fact, while some of his children had joined him in the United Kingdom, one of his sons was still in Morocco and it was through the phone that the family was able to continue parental and sibling contact. The rapid development of new communication technologies continues to change the dynamics of distance and connection. For many the growth of transnational media networks and new communications technologies are both driving and facilitating the already changing nature of migration. Children are growing up with a different experience of “place” that challenges past beliefs about national and cultural borders. Ultimately, as Hargreaves (2001) suggests, this is not a “zero sum game”: a heightened interest in one society may not necessarily mean a loss of involvement in another. Aksoy and Robins (2003) go further, challenging the notion that migration necessarily implies a radical dislocation or “splitting” from the culture of the homeland—and that it necessarily results in feelings of loss and nostalgia, or in yearning for an idealized image of the past. They suggest that transnational television makes a significant difference in migrants’ ability to manage separation and distance. Migrants are increasingly living and thinking transnationally, rather than being “caught between cultures”—a model of schizophrenic identity that constructs migrants as essentially problematic (Robins and Aksoy, 2005: 25). But it would be wrong to assume from the study of migrants from media-rich countries such as Turkey that this applies similarly to other cases. There still remains a media and digital media divide, both internationally between countries which maintain transnational media and



Moving on to new communication technologies


those who do not have the capacity and often rely on former colonial connections, and also within countries where personal economic circumstances can dictate media choices. For example, in our research, families from the Democratic Republic of the Congo relied on French channels, Somalis on Italian TV. In another variation, Kurdish families were able to tune into European-based Kurdish-speaking media banned in their country of origin, Turkey. Several of the children reported losing satellite connections at home when times were hard. Most had no or very slow Internet access, and had to rely on school or library for studying. This appeared to be particularly the case for refugee children—a phenomenon which clearly has implications for their education and for the provision of public Internet access.

Children producing media In the introduction we stated that one of the underlying motivations for our research was to develop more participatory approaches to research with migrant children. We wanted to use creative methods of research to encourage representations of self and experience and bring the children’s own knowledge of media to bear in exploiting the new technological possibilities of self-expression. In the previous section we focused on children’s “consumption” of media and the ways in which this facilitates or forms crossroads in the everyday experiences of migration. We now move on to consider methodological dilemmas and possibilities of media production and the role that it can play in research. In the second project (CHICAM) we set out to enable the children to explore and represent their own migration experiences. While this was a worthy aim, and one we would still wish to defend, it was significantly more problematic than might at first appear, particularly where it concerned questions of “voice,” audience, and interpretation. How did the children within and between the clubs interpret their own and their peers’ work? How did the researchers individually and as a group read them? How did they relate to other data? And finally, how they were to be presented at the end of the project to a wider more official audience, including policy-makers and funder of the research?

Stereotyping and voice Over the course of the year that the CHICAM clubs operated the children produced over 50 video productions of very different styles and with different levels of polish. As a starting point for learning production



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skills, each club made a “hello” video introducing themselves and their locations, relying as much as possible on visuals in order to overcome some of the language barriers. These were posted on the project intranet. Each club drew on well-known symbols to minimize explanation: the children in Rome filmed the Coliseum for their opening shot; those in London included a red double-decker bus. However, many of the images caused some surprise and challenged the children’s preconceptions of the countries concerned. “Where was the snow in Sweden?” “Why were the girls in the video from Germany wearing hijabs?” “Yes the girls in Italy are so pretty!” By talking about these stereotypes they were also able to talk about the stereotyping they as migrants also experienced. As the children’s production skills developed, we began to address the research themes (friendship, family, school, and visual communication). One production, entitled Ali and Vladimir, grew out of group discussions about friendship in the Greek club. It is a well-structured, quite powerful dramatization of a family story that touches on common migration themes. A boy who has recently arrived in the city is lonely and without friends, while outside he can hear children playing. He cries as he looks at a photograph of his friends back home. Later he is nearly run down by a car as he tries to cross the road. He is rescued by two boys and they make friends; he then invites them home and his mother prepares food for them. The next sequence involves his father: he loses his job and the family is forced to move again. They say tearful farewells to their friends and exchange mementoes. The film does not use dialogue, but there are brief titles in English to lead us through each scene and explain what is happening. The story was acted out by the children and edited by the media educator, with the guidance of the children. It provided an effective way of presenting the difficulties and disruptions that many migrant children experience. It was well received by other researchers and by other adults. We included an excerpt in the DVD produced specifically for policy-makers. Nevertheless, on later reflection we came to recognize that there is a confusion here about the audience the children were aiming at, and a conflict between the research and production needs that is a central dilemma in many projects of this nature. The video tells a powerful, authentic story; but it also talks of one type of experience, in a manner that largely confirms well-rehearsed stereotypes. As the project proceeded, it became clear that this was not necessarily what the children wanted to do. Of course, part of our interest as researchers was precisely in encouraging the children to offer us perspectives and representations





that were specific to their position as migrants. But from what position was it possible for them to speak? In a sense, we could not avoid constructing the children as representatives of the broader category of “migrant”—even though this was only one facet of their identities. The danger here was that of “othering”—exotocising or merely patronizing—some essentialized “migrant” experience, albeit in the interests of making it publicly visible and enabling it to be related to policy concerns.

Playful productions and animations Over the period of the project the children began to experiment with different styles themselves, and to develop their own voices. Their ideas and expectations about working with media were sometimes quite different from those of the media educators and the researchers. While we tended to think in terms of more or less “finished” products, they expected to be able to experiment in a more spontaneous and open-ended way. In some cases, this was a matter of playing with the technology—for example, with the “tricks” that could be achieved through editing tools, using reversals, slow motion, pixilation—while in others it was about acting and performance. Thus, alongside the productions that related directly to our research themes, there were those that took a more playful form. The pleasure and amusement to be gained from performing in front of the camera was not something that simply “wore off” as the project proceeded. Some clubs set up a private “video diary” space screened off from the other club activities where children could simply go and talk to the camera, or play-act in front of it. Thus, in one Swedish video modeled on the Big Brother “diary room,” one girl talked about difficulties she was having with her friends. One video shows two boys wearing head scarves shouting about Osama bin Laden, wielding a tripod as a gun and subsequently rolling on the floor “dying.” Since both the boys’ families had been affected by armed conflict in the Middle East, there was clearly a personal resonance to this play; but here they were bouncing around and laughing, thoroughly enjoying subverting the seriousness of the subject matter. Most of these videos were made for viewing within their own clubs, and only a few found their way onto the intranet for wider viewing. How the children conceptualized the audiences of their productions is an issue that we are still working on and that has important implications for this type of participatory research.



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In addition to these spontaneous productions we also built on the experiences of the cut-out animations undertaken in the first project. Several of the CHICAM clubs made claymations to tell simple stories. By allowing the children a degree of distance and through its association with humor, animation also allowed the children to risk exposure. As we have noted, telling stories through a “third person,” such as puppets, drawn animations, or, as in this case, claymation, is a method increasingly used in therapeutic work to help young people come to terms with traumatic or difficult experiences (Eokter, 1998; Kalmanowitz and Lloyd, 1997). The animation is not merely a simple, funny story of difficulties overcome but making it also had a wider significance. Many animations made in the project were clearly personal explorations of migration. These simple narratives were well received by the other clubs.

From representation to interpretation Questions of interpretation are fraught with complications of “voice,” power, culture, experience, and audience. No media productions can ever be taken as transparent and are always born of past media experiences, cultural contexts, and history. In the context of research, this posed particular problems, even more so if you are using such an approach to study as complex a cultural and emotional field as migration. Our interpretations of the productions relied on the examination of the visuals, not only on the level of personal responses of the children who made and viewed them and the researchers but also in relation to other data such as interviews, observations, and contextualizing national, local, and cultural research. In addition the media forms chosen by the children drew on previous media experiences many of which we might not be familiar with and therefore fail to “see.” There were several videos that on first viewing bore no relation to migration but on closer examination and in combination with other data (interviews and observations) were clearly related. One video, for example, appeared to be a simple play with the tricks of editing but we discovered later it related directly to a magician program the boy used to watch on French transnational TV in Sierra Leone. The role of director of the film, telling his teacher what and how to film was also an important empowering experience in this boy’s relationship with the school and his peers. The editing skills he acquired were much appreciated by his father as part of his educational ambitions for his son to become a computer programmer.





Another example was a short film made by a Lithuanian girl, which showed a series of close-up stills of colorful, but apparently random, objects (a Winnie the Pooh clock, a pencil, a saucepan, etc.). It transpired that the series of objects were all ones she had either chosen to bring with her or had been sent by her grandparents. The bright colors she included were also chosen because she said “England was so grey.” The video allowed her to reflect on her situation and was certainly about her experience of migration and loss.

Conclusion Mainstream media often carry negative representations of migrants and migration and at different times fuel hostile and threatening attitudes that are also part of the children’s common experiences (Cottle, 2000; van Dijk, 1991; Hargreaves, 2001). However, our main argument in this chapter is that media consumption and production can also positively facilitate migrant children’s active negotiations of the local and global crossroads that are central to their everyday lives. With increasing media possibilities, living with both global and local connections does not need to imply insurmountable conflict but can offer ways in which children learn to understand and live with multiple identities and rich social relationships. Our research points to the important role that different media genres play locally for families learning about their new places of residence while at the same time maintaining active links to family in other locations and to their places of origin. Although these can bring difficult emotions of fear and loss and family conflict, they also facilitate family closeness and continuity. The ways in which children use talk about media with their friends point to its important role in making local social contacts outside the home. For the children in our research this local contact was their priority. They wanted to use their mobiles to talk to their school friends, to talk about local television programs, and to make videos about their lives now rather than in the past. But at the same time they enjoyed a very wide range of media at home and appreciated the easy contact they could maintain with their wider diasporic family. As we have shown, media are not used in isolation but within the dynamics of cultural and social relationships as well as individual interests and needs. By exploring the ways in which migrant children use media we can gain insights into the social and cultural relationships central to migration and the everyday negotiations of place and identity.



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The study of media also makes transparent the economic and cultural power structures within which migration is bounded and the ways in which people either try to circumvent sources of information or seek to reinterpret representations of the news, for example. Contemporary media developments and faster and more frequent global contact are increasing the immediacy of communication and are accelerating and changing the forms of migration. As our discussion has shown, there is no longer a need to decide between “here” or “there” but the challenge is to be able to live with these crossroads. What is clear is that migrant children are not the only ones who need to develop these skills. Rather than pulling back into national identities and a narrow conception of citizenship, education needs to address the changing realities of global life. Talk and education about media should be an important component of educational programs. Using media to represent oneself is a powerful way of addressing an external audience. Outlets such as YouTube are providing global platforms for this. However, as we have argued, this is not a straightforward process, and as researchers we should be aware of the problems of voice, representation, and interpretation. What the children produced in our research was partly determined by the forms of “media language” they had at their disposal. They did not simply seek outer form for their inner feelings: for the most part, they used existing media forms and genres with which they were already familiar—although they also combined and mutated them in different ways. As might be expected, the children drew on the media cultures they knew from their home countries (e.g., in traditional forms of music or storytelling), and on those of their new country of residence—and, more broadly, on the field of global media. As such, children’s visual productions cannot stand alone as straightforward “statements” of their lives and experiences—any more than we should take what they say in an interview at face value as a straightforward reflection of what they really think or feel. We need to combine the analysis of the productions with other data—both observations of the production process and interviews and observations gathered in other settings. Despite the claims that are sometimes made on their behalf, we would argue that children’s productions do not simply “speak for themselves” and should be analyzed in combination with other data.

Notes 1. Children rarely classified themselves in these terms; the school, families, or organizations in which we worked were often also reluctant to give us such





information; differentiating between children who were refugees due to war or natural disaster or through economic necessity is in itself controversial and an issue that we will not be addressing. In the case of some, their status was unclear as they were still in legal process, while others whom we would classify as migrants had themselves had traumatic experiences of family separation or death. Some—generally those who maintained very close physical links with their countries of origin, visiting regularly or receiving family and friends on visits—could more clearly be categorized as migrants. Yet the children had many shared experiences and their different media uses depended more on other factors (such as class, gender, religion, and the media economy of their country of origin) rather than their legal status. For the purposes of this chapter we will be referring to the children as migrant except where there is a specific point in relation to their refugee status or experience. 2. This age was chosen because the children were still very much home-based, had generally formed close friendships, yet were entering the transition to secondary school and more independent lives. They were able to articulate their media preferences and engage in media production fairly easily. Liesbeth had also been a teacher at the school and already knew several of the children, thus making access to them and their families fairly straightforward. This is also an age range that has not been much studied in this field. 3. www.childrenyouthandmedia.org.uk. 4. Germany (Ludwigsberg University), Greece (Greek Refugee Council), Italy (CENSIS), Netherlands (University of Utrecht), the United Kingdom (Institute of Education), and Sweden (Stockholm University).

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J. D. Halloran, A. Bhatt, and P. Gray (1995) Ethnic Minorities and Television: A Study of Use, Reactions and Preferences (Leicester: University of Leicester, Centre for Mass Communication Research). U. Hannerz (1996) Transnational Connections: People, Culture, Places (London: Routledge). A. G. Hargreaves (2001) “Mahgrebis and Television Broadcasting in France” in J. W. Dacyl and C. Westin (eds) Cultural Diversity and the Media (Stockholm, Sweden: CEIFO), 190–201. C. Jenks (2005) Childhood (Abingdon: Routledge). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2006) “After September 11: TV News and Transnational Audiences”, special issue, 32(6). D. Kalmanowitz and B. Lloyd (1997) The Portable Studio: Art Therapy and Political Conflict: Initiatives in Former Yugoslavia and South Africa (London: Health Education Authority). K. Karim (2003) The Media of Diaspora: Mapping the Globe (London: Routledge). C. Keyes (2004) Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Champaign, IL University of Illinois Press). J. Knorr (2005) “When German Children Come Home” in J. Knorr (ed.) Children and Migration: From Experience to Agency (New Brunswick: Transaction), 51–76. R. Lister, S. Middleton, and N. Smith (2001) Young People’s Voices: Citizenship Education (Leicester: Youth Work Press) Youth, Citizenship and Social Change (ESRC Research Programme). J. Lull (1988) World Families Watch Television (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications). J. Lull (1990) Inside Family Viewing: Ethnographic Research on Television’s Audiences (London: Routledge). J. Lull (2000) Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach (Cambridge: Polity). D. Massey (1999) “Imagining Globalization: Power-Geometries of Time Space” in A. Brah, M. Hickman, and M. Mac an Ghaill (eds) Global Futures: Migration, Environment and Globalization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 27–46. M. Milikowski (2001) “Learning about Turkishness by Satellite: Private Satisfactions and Public Benefits” in K. Ross and P. Playdon (eds) Black Marks: Minority Ethnic Audiences and Media (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing), 125–138. D. Miller (2000) The Young and the Restless in Trinidad: A Case of the Local and the Global in Mass Consumption (New York: New York University Press). D. Morley (2000) Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity (London and New York: Routledge). D. Morley and K. Robins (1995) Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries (London and New York: Routledge). H. Naficy (1993) The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press). J. Nederveen Pieterse (2004) Globalization and Culture: Global Melange (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield). OECD (2003) “Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Annual reports on Main Trends in International Migration”. OECD (2007) “Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Annual reports on Main Trends in International Migration”.



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M. F. Orellana, B. Thorne, A. Chee, and W. S. E. Lam (2001) “Transnational Childhoods: The Participation of Children in Processes of Family Migration”, Social Problems, 48(4): 572–591. A. Prout and A. James (1997) “A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood: Provenance, Promise and Problems” in A. James and A. Prout (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood (London: Falmer Press), 1–33. K. Robins and A. Aksoy (2005) “Whoever Looks Always Finds: Transnational Viewing and Knowledge-Experience” in J. Chalaby (ed.) Transnational Television Worldwide (London: I. B. Tauris), 14–42. L. Siew-Peng (2001) “Satellite TV and Chinese Migrants in Britain” in N. Wood and R. King (eds.) Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference (London: Routledge), 143–157. T. A. Simpson (1996) “Constructions of Self and other in the Experience of Music” in D. Grodin and T. R. Lindlof (eds) Constructing the Self in a Mediated World (London: Sage). T. Solomon (2005) “ ‘Living Underground Is Tough’: Authenticity and Locality in the Hip-Hop Community in Istanbul, Turkey”, Popular Music, 24(1): 1–20. A. Sreberny (2000) “Media and Diasporic Consciousness: An Exploration Among Iranians in London” in S. Cottle (ed.) Ethnic Minorities and the Media (Buckingham: Open University Press), 179–196. T. Tufte (2002) Living with the Rubbish Queen: Telenovelas, Culture and Modernity in Brazil (Luton: University of Luton Press). J. Tunstall (1977) The Media Are American (London: Constable). N. Van Hear (2004) “ ‘I went as Far as My Money would Take Me’: Conflict, Forced Migration and Class”, Working Paper 6 (Oxford: University of Oxford, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society). S. Vertovec (2004) “Cheap Calls: The Social Glue of Migrant Transnationalism”, Global Networks, 4(2): 219–224. S. Whiteley, A. Bennett, and S. Hawkins (2004) Music, Space and Place: Popular Music and Cultural Identity (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing). N. Wood and R. King (2001) “Media and Migration: An Overview” in N. Wood and R. King (eds) Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference (London: Routledge), 1–22. B. Yeoh, S. Huang, and T. Lam (2005) “Transnationalizing the ‘Asian’ Family: Imaginaries, Intimacies and Strategic Intents”, Global Networks, 5(4): 307–315.







Reviewing Policies: Taking Responsibility for the Rights of Migrant Children



Part II




The Production of Criminal Migrant Children: Surveillance, Detention, and Deportation in France Susan J. Terrio

Introduction The rapid influx of irregular migrants into France from the East and South has produced a substantive shift in mechanisms of control and containment at the borders, on the street, in the courts, and in prisons. In the wake of increased global labor, capital, and cultural flows, states struggle to reassert their power and authority over national territory and legal sovereignty. They seek to limit unauthorized migrants’ entry, to constrain their mobility within the nation, to restrict possibilities for asylum, permanent residency, and naturalization, and to reinforce surveillance, detention, and deportation. In a post-9/11 world marked by expanded militarization of border policing, the targeting of nonwhite and impoverished foreigners, and the rise of anti-immigrant intolerance, the criminalization of immigration relies not only on an ever-present threat of deportability (Cole, 2003; Coutin, 2000; De Genova, 2005, 2007; Zilberg, 2007) but on increased criminal convictions, incarcerations, determinations of ineligibility for legalization of status, and expulsions (Iserte, 2008; Kobelinsky, 2008; Makaremi, 2008). In trends predating 2001, there has been a reinforcement of border control and an increase in the spatial confinement of irregular migrants through a proliferation of detention regimes that include holding zones at international airports, detention centers, reception facilities, state shelters, jails, and prisons. These regimes rely on national laws and policy directives, nation-wide tracking systems, law enforcement manuals, asylum officers, state personnel who coordinate housing for refugees 79



4

The Production of Criminal Migrant Children

and asylum seekers, national police, border and custom patrols, new specialized security details who assist with deportations, and judicial personnel in administrative and criminal courts. These detention regimes are marked paradoxically by a suspension of national and international law in spaces like waiting zones as well as an overlap and intensification of sanctions under immigration and criminal law in those very spaces that raise the stakes for migrants and put them at risk for permanent exclusion. Unlawful presence and resisting a deportation order now constitute a criminal offense that exposes the migrant to a penal conviction, a prison sentence, and inadmissibility to France upon release. Moreover, the close coordination among police and customs enforcement, airplane companies who are fined for transporting irregular passengers, courts, and the state agencies who monitor, house, or detain unauthorized migrants reveals a continuum of control from unauthorized entry at the border or apprehension within France to (relatively rare) release or (more frequently) deportation (Bigo, 1996; Iserte, 2008; Kobelinsky, 2008). The ways that waiting zones, detention centers, reception facilities, administrative and criminal courts, and prisons stand in for and reinforce one another amplifies their control and containment effect. The personnel in these places have the legal authority and discretion to move irregular migrants from site to site in a closed loop, from airport to airport, from waiting zone to state reception center, from reception center to family detention preceding deportation, or from court to prison. The decreased tolerance for unauthorized migrants (Fassin, 2005) has reopened long-standing debates on the legitimacy and use of violence in dealing with both internal others and unwanted outsiders and acceptance of more coercive approaches, including the forcible restraint and expulsion of those refusing to leave airport detention after denial of entry into France or those resisting removal from reception centers or safe havens such as churches after the denial of asylum claims. The question of repression versus assistance emerged forcefully in debates on how to reduce youth crime associated with “immigrant” delinquents (Terrio, 2009) and how to manage growing numbers of two populations of unaccompanied minors entering France illegally from Eastern Europe and North Africa: those involved in illicit activity, the majority of whom were economic migrants, and those fleeing persecution, most of whom were asylum seekers (Diminescu, 2003; Terrio, 2004, 2008). This chapter centers on the production of migrant illegality and on the uneven and contradictory responses of public authorities who have alternated between a humanitarian concern to protect and integrate parentless minors and, more frequently, punitive approaches. These approaches



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include attempts to disqualify these minors as endangered children, to redefine them as criminal vagrants, to target them disproportionately for punishment, and to discourage them from establishing permanent residence or seeking French citizenship. I consider first the situations of undocumented minors who arrive at France’s Charles De Gaulle-Roissy airport claiming persecution and seeking asylum. Secondly, I examine those who were put in pretrial detention after arrest and a court hearing and urged to return home. Finally, I connect the treatment of the first two groups with those placed in group homes or French foster families and supervised by court caseworkers.

Waiting zones at the border The 1992 legalization of administrative detention for irregular migrants arriving at Roissy airport represented a significant reconceptualization of the border. Termed “waiting areas” (zones d’attente), border detention areas are liminal spaces located between runway tarmacs and customs that are not subject to French or international law. Indeed, the decision to deny entry is technically an administrative decision, not a judicial one, but the resistance to deportation has been criminalized and carries the risk of prosecution and prison. It is precisely the threat of criminal prosecution that police use to pressure the inadmissible person to leave immediately and of their own accord (Iserte, 2008: 48). Like the detention center Christmas Island, off the coast of Australia, or those throughout Europe in Italian, Belgian, Portuguese, or Irish airports, French waiting zones were created because, unlike traditional borders dividing two separate sociopolitical orders, there is no other side to seal off from migrants (Makaremi, 2008: 58). Rather, to deal with the unauthorized migrants arriving by air, national authorities create a legal fiction of extraterritoriality, a space 25 kilometers from the capital that is not French territory, which allows the temporary detention of those deemed inadmissible because they lack legal documents, resources, or housing. Once inside the waiting zones, the legal rights and territorial personhood (Motomura, 2006) guaranteed unsupervised children in France, both citizen minors and unaccompanied migrants, change dramatically. Civil statutes that treat unsupervised children as endangered and entitle them to protective measures administered by juvenile courts do not apply. The laws that prohibit all forms of forced removal for this population are suspended. When unaccompanied minors are refused entry after arrival and held in border detention, they are theoretically entitled to limited protections. These include the right to have an interpreter, to



Susan J. Terrio


see a doctor, to have a legal representative (administrateur ad hoc) present in immigration proceedings, particularly for the formal notification for their placement in the waiting zone, to give consent before submitting to age determination tests, to be detained separately from adults, and the right to remain in France for 24 hours before being returned (Anafé, 2008). In practice, compliance with these rights in ambiguous spaces such as waiting zones is uneven and contradictory. The strategies used by French authorities are designed to dissuade, criminalize, and drive back the increasing numbers of foreign minors who enter France illegally. French NGOs such as Anafé, the United Nations Committee on Children’s Rights, and French courts of appeal have urged protection for foreign minors and issued warnings regarding the living conditions in French waiting zones, the high percentage (36 percent) of minors who are not appointed legal representatives, the lack of mental health services or immediate access to attorneys, the use of airline personnel or even law enforcement personnel as interpreters to describe minors’ legal rights in their native languages, the impossibility for appeal of decisions in immigration proceedings, the standard practice of using controversial assessments of bone development to assess age without the minor’s consent1 and, most disturbing of all, the summary deportations of minor asylum seekers without credible evaluations of the dangers awaiting them in their countries of origin or last residence.2 The president of the NGO Anafé, which has a contract with the Interior Ministry to provide services to detained minors, noted that many were put back on planes within hours of their arrival before they “even saw the walls of the waiting zone” and could access the limited rights available to them (Anafé, 2008: 15). She warned that those sent back to their country of origin or a city of embarkation where they had no family or ties faced real hardship if not death (Anafé, 2008: 17).3 Human rights activists and judicial personnel have criticized the high numbers of young children under 13 detained and improperly supervised in hotels that form part of waiting zones (225 out 680 in 2007) and the unacceptably low numbers of unaccompanied children admitted to France and seeking legal status, only 62 percent of the total (Anafé, 2008: 13).

Arrest, prosecution, and prison The influx of unaccompanied, undocumented children involved in criminal activity was a significant factor in increasing the proportion of



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penal to civil cases at the Paris juvenile court from 1997 to 2001 where I began research on juvenile delinquency in 2001. In just 4 years, penal cases rose from 50 percent of the total to 75 percent, adding to already heavy case loads and straining scarce resources. Within state ministries, law enforcement, service providers, and the Paris juvenile court the problem of unauthorized minors generated divergent understandings of agency and accountability as well as renewed debates on the category of child victims versus juvenile criminals. To manage underaged migrants involved in illicit activity on French territory and to restrict the influx of political refugees fleeing turmoil and trauma, French authorities adopted strategies to disqualify them as endangered children and to recategorize them as criminal vagrants along with irregular adults. The first strategy was categorical and redefined unaccompanied minors in two ways, first, as irregular immigrants or criminal vagrants and, second, as adults with no systematic right to protection.4 The definition of minors as adults had potentially devastating effects such as immediate trials in adult court, incarceration in overcrowded adult prisons, and denial of social services (see below). This first strategy was linked to a second strategy based on repressive measures which consisted of arresting, prosecuting, detaining pending trail, and sentencing unaccompanied irregular minors to a range of punitive sentences for largely nonviolent petty crimes. In Paris, a number of juvenile judges noted the increasing numbers of incarceration orders requested by juvenile prosecutors and approved by magistrates who control all detention and release decisions (juges des libertés et de la détention). One juvenile judge described two cases in which a magistrate had approved what she viewed as totally unwarranted incarceration orders. The first involved a pregnant 16-year-old Romanian living in a squat who had been arrested for theft. The second involved an unaccompanied, undocumented minor from Morocco accused of aggravated theft (he had shoved his victim and stolen a pair of designer sunglasses) who was in prison awaiting trial because the prosecutor viewed him as a flight risk. One of the foremost mechanisms for containing unaccompanied minors became, paradoxically, a special court (Court L) created by the president of the Paris juvenile court in 2001 to deal more humanely with this population and to prevent “a delinquency driven by poverty not criminality.” Despite the intention to encourage voluntary appearances and to provide assistance, 80 percent of the children who appeared in this court arrived by police escort after arrest.5 Of that number 85 percent were undocumented Romanians. The presiding juvenile



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judge tried a high proportion of cases in absentia (84 percent) and frequently imposed pretrial and posttrial detention,6 despite the fact that 89 percent of the infractions heard there involved nonviolent property offenses (Inspection Générale des Services Judiciaires, 2004: 8). Children who occupied a legal space of nonexistence consequently accumulated long police records, were pressured to return “home,” and threatened with the certainty of deportation upon their majority.

Doing time In a pattern that began in the 1990s and rapidly accelerated, successive governments instituted aggressive modes of policing for minors who were deemed dangerous based on their ethno-cultural origin and affiliation. They voted stiffer penalties for existing offenses such as threatening or insulting the police, added new aggravating circumstances for theft, created new infractions such as antiloitering laws, constructed new juvenile prisons, and authorized a national data base on children “considered likely to disrupt public order.”7 They extended the coercive force and reach of the state through the justice system by enhancing prosecutorial and police power and by accelerating the adjudication process to permit swifter prosecutions, investigations, and trials for juveniles. Legislators also changed the rules for preventive detention, permitting a new “flexible incarceration” regime for minors aged 13–16.8 On August 10, 2007, a new law on adult and minor recidivists went into effect. It created minimum sentences for the first time, suspended the automatic application of the excuse of minority for 16–18 year olds,9 and mandated prison for a range of offenses.10 In April 2001 a senior probation and integration counselor, Vivian Marshal, accompanied me to the Youth Detention Center at the FleuryMérogis prison. This was a period following a substantial increase in the minor prison population. The annual total of minors in prison went from 1905 in 1994 to 4542 in 2001 and over the same period pretrial detentions nearly doubled, rising from 961 to 1665.11 Her superior, Maude Dayet, Section Head of the Juvenile Quarter, permitted me to attend the debriefing session she organized on the detainees’ behavior. That day 57 minors were in prison, 80 percent of whom were held pending trial.12 The weekly debriefing reports were critical because they determined the boys’ movement among the living units which were differentiated by four regulatory regimes extending from the strictest to the most liberal. The evaluation of behavior relied on the supervisors’ continuous observation and evaluation of the small groups of boys assigned



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to them. Rewards included free TV at specified hours and degrees of access to activity rooms and sports areas. Punishments involved the withdrawal of privileges such as taking meals in common, participating in activities, and using spaces other than the exercise yard. Penal offenses were meticulously catalogued and minutely sub-divided into three degrees: (1) assaults and prison breaks, (2) insults and threats, and (3) refusal to follow orders, followed by a correspondingly detailed set of punishments such as solitary confinement (for those over 16) or loss of visitation rights. The debriefing sessions permitted supervisors to continually sort and resort inmates into categories of educability based on their weekly evaluations. The constant threat of movement from the most liberal units to the most restricted reinforced the behavioral norms considered ideal. Supervisors noted approvingly those boys who were “calm and quiet.” Excessive “impulsiveness,” “rapid mood shifts,” and “willful isolation” were viewed negatively and recorded as suspect behaviors. One supervisor suggested moving a Chinese teenager out of the basic unit and into the more structured unit with fewer privileges because he kept a “dirty cell and didn’t participate in activities or exercise in the yard.” When Maude Dayet pointed out that he spoke no French, her colleague retorted, “Yes, he is in a bad way, but how will he evolve?” The fact that the prison provided no classes in French as a foreign language was beside the point. Given the importance of language mastery as a constituent element of culture, non-French-speaking foreigners were much more easily positioned outside of the social order and risked having their behaviors read as incorrigible. The situation of the Chinese teenager whose withdrawal attracted the censure of his supervisor was part of a larger problem that attracted public attention in the late 1990s. Psychiatrists in the Center expressed grave concern about a special segment of the Center population from Eastern Europe, Africa, and China. These teenagers had entered France illegally, broken the law, were wrongly identified as adults by means of a highly controversial test of skeletal development, sent to immediate trial (comparution immédiate), given prison sentences, and were incarcerated with 18–21 year olds in the Youth Center.13 This was, in fact, the case of a homeless Gabonese minor who was in the juvenile quarter of the Paris jail in May 2003. Without papers or family, he had been identified as a legal adult, sent to immediate trial, and served a year in adult prison at 16. After a second arrest, he was granted minority status and sentenced to 3 weeks in the Youth Detention Center.



Susan J. Terrio


One psychiatrist noted that the theft of identity was particularly traumatic since it constituted the only reference point remaining after the loss of home and family. “Lacking a solid grounding and a favorable environment, the mourning for traumatic events such as war and massacres cannot begin and their ability to adapt is stifled.”14 Counselors and psychiatrists noted depression, insomnia, loss of appetite, despair, and self-mutilation as common reactions to trauma among inmates under 18. They warned that suicides would likely result. This was not an idle threat. French rates of suicide are high compared to other European nations and those in French prisons are seven times higher than the population as a whole (Floch, 2000). In the summer of 2003, I accompanied Caroline, a court caseworker, to the same Youth Detention Center where she was scheduled to meet with three minors, two of whom were awaiting trial and the third was nearing the end of a 3-year sentence. All three were undocumented minors from China, Mali, and the “former Yugoslavia” and only two spoke passable French. These meetings would form the substance of her report to the court. The pretrial counseling she provided was revealing. In spite of the 2000 legislation to enhance the presumption of innocence, no such presumption existed for the adolescents sitting in prison. Caroline’s first questions after reminding them of the “facts” with which they were charged addressed the reason for their detention. This was the moment for them to explain what detention had meant to them and to show that they had put distance between themselves and the offense. We first stopped to see an undocumented 15-year-old male teenager from the former Yugoslavia ordered detained pending trial from the judge in Court L. This case was particularly disturbing because of his lack of fluency in French, inability to comprehend the basic legal precepts, and extreme psychological distress. As soon as we sat down he informed the caseworker that the month was up. “She [the judge of Court L] said a month [in prison].” When the caseworker asked “what he wanted in order to leave prison in an orderly way,” he replied emphatically, “I don’t want to stay in prison.” There remained the problem of who would take responsibility for him since he was alone in France. He claimed to have lost contact with his parents but was close to a paternal uncle who lived in Rome and had promised to give him work and a home. When she challenged him saying he wasn’t old enough to work legally, he insisted, “I study school in Italy and my uncle is going to pay train and school.” Caroline confirmed having contacted the uncle but needed to call back with an interpreter to confirm details. He became upset, his voice trembling and his eyes welling up with tears, “I can



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call, I speak to him.” When she questioned him about how he spent his time during detention, he hesitated a long time before saying, “I stay in cell, or walk, or do games. I’m not in school because I don’t know [write] French.” He stopped, his voice catching again, “After I don’t want to come back here.” She reminded him gently that he was facing trial in the juvenile court for aggravated theft and attempted unsuccessfully to make him understand the difference between his status as a prévenu (detention before judgment) versus a détenu (incarceration after conviction). A trial would not necessarily mean release and besides, even if he were free, there were arrangements to be made before he could leave the country because it was high season (and heavy demand on public transportation as the French prepare to depart en masse for vacation). He would have to stay in a state facility several days before being able to reserve a seat on a train. This was too much to bear. He could not contain his tears. Caroline ended the interview quickly with a promise to prepare his departure and an admonition for him to “be strong.”

Family, childhood, and belonging: Can I be French? Those fortunate minors who were admitted to France as asylum seekers or apprehended and provided protection through placement in state shelters or foster families were supervised by juvenile court personnel, state caseworkers, or social workers and had to regularly appear for hearings with juvenile judges. The oral interviews in jail, caseworker reports, and the social assistance hearings between judges, caseworkers, foster families, and minors at the Paris juvenile court open a window onto French middle class notions of childhood and adolescence. These notions presupposed a strongly adult-centric model that demands close supervision by appropriate authority figures and holds parents responsible for the actions of their children. Children’s ways of feeling, thinking, and responding were limited to well-circumscribed spaces and stages.15 State caseworkers were particularly attentive to the emergence of what they viewed as proper personality structure and appropriate emotional expression. They used metaphors of containment and restriction to describe a solid structural frame that bore the imprint of its adult architects and was designed to last a lifetime. Proper childhood development was linked to the child’s inculcation of a sense of limits and clear boundaries in space and time. Although there are obvious parallels with child psychological theory elsewhere, court personnel placed particular emphasis on the connection between individual limits, spatial grounding, and personal, and, therefore, social identity. Without the



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appropriate structure, a child could have no clear sense of his bearings or place within his family and society as a whole since bearings signified a firmly grounded sense of personhood and identity. The critical questions for the court turned on these understandings of a properly structured personality. Has the child accepted and internalized the rules of social life and controls on individual behavior that are a prerequisite to integration within a larger social and moral order? The interviews conducted by caseworkers provided the preliminary social, psychological, family, and scholastic background information used to brief the judges who then determine services such as psychological therapy and outcomes such as placement in a shelter, boarding school, or with a family. Caseworker reports focused on family structures within and between generations, housing, income, lifestyle, and educational level and drew heavily on a medical-psychological discourse to evaluate the child’s personality and capacity for normal social interactions. This data conditioned the substance of the case as well as normative evaluations regarding the child’s psychological wellbeing and social behavior which remained central to later proceedings. The reports formed a constituent element of a disciplinary system in which children were marked, evaluated, and categorized. There was a broad consensus among caseworkers about dominant mainstream values, codes, and practices. Caseworkers were particularly attentive to matters of self-presentation including dress, hair, bodily comportment, and oral expression. The necessary conformity to these codes and values was treated as a universal truth. Caseworker reports revealed much about French notions of group affiliation and group integrity. One of the central goals was to collect “facts” that can be linked to immediate risk factors. Children were asked questions about their parents and grandparents, with equal emphasis given to the ascendants of the child’s mother and father. Caseworkers recorded the birth place, birth date, and native languages of the child and parents and, in theory, carefully differentiated all relationships by blood and marriage. The resulting construct reflected a number of normative assumptions about the integrity of groups through time and the primordial ties that were said to stem from commonalities of place, blood, language, and custom. By emphasizing a child’s roots and genealogical continuity, the interview questions took group affiliation as a given rather than as a situational and perpetually emergent phenomenon. These questions denied the fluid nature of group formation and the fact that individuals not only identify simultaneously with many groups but in a given context



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specify one affiliation rather than another, for strategic or pragmatic reasons. In a situation where the children under court supervision were undocumented minors of immigrant or foreign ancestry, many of whom had fragmented family histories, this interview process was particularly problematic. Countries and nationalities served as the standard measure of diversity whereas the first-generation migrants from former colonies in sub-Saharan regions, for example, differentiated themselves according to ethnicity. Moreover, the interview did not account for systems of affiliation and descent that depart from the cognatic model observable in “modern” French families where equal importance is given to the mother and father’s line. It did not recognize ongoing transnational migratory flows rather than stable residential patterns or culturally divergent child rearing arrangements that involve regular movement between places and produce “irregular” family genealogies. A social assistance case heard in 2003 in the Paris court created to hear the civil and penal cases of unaccompanied and separated minors (Court L) is a case in point. It involved a 17-year-old Romanian minor who had been living away from home for 4 years, first in Italy with an older brother followed by a move on his own to Austria and France where he lived on the street and survived from theft before rescue by the Child Protection Brigade. He was placed with a French foster family and given apprenticeship training in masonry in preparation for a voluntary assisted return to Romania. His foster mother and apprenticeship master reported that he had trouble with authority; he could not respect rules; he was withdrawn; and he was rebellious. After placement he had continued to shoplift and to steal cigarettes from his foster mother’s purse. The judge scheduled a hearing when the minor advised her that he wanted to stay in France permanently and acquire French nationality. She questioned him extensively on his break with his family, schooling in Romania, and his putative attachments to both his family and country, despite his absence from both for the formative years between 13 and 17 years of age. The judge, the caseworker, and his foster mother all interpreted the boy’s decision to stay in France and maintain distance from parents whom he clearly saw as neglectful and manipulative as a sign of emotional distress, psychological alienation, or unhealthy dissimulation. Their incredulity concerning his desire to “leave home” permanently and their sympathy for his parents reflect French normative assumptions about the integrity of groups through time and the primordial ties stemming from shared places, blood,



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languages, and customs. By emphasizing a child’s roots and genealogical continuity, court personnel understood group membership to be an immutable condition. Their distrust concerning his shifting motivations for staying abroad reveals French understandings of the indissoluble links between language and personality development and a misunderstanding of the very strategies that ensure successful integration within different migratory contexts. They deemed a break with his natal family to be inconceivable and saw it as a reason to discredit his motives for settlement in France. The following conversation took place in a 2003 hearing to determine the Romanian minor’s suitability for naturalization and permanent settlement in France and to consider his request for a definitive break with his family of origin in Romania. It included the foreign minor, his French foster mother, the juvenile judge, and the social workers assigned to his case: Foster Mother: He manipulates, he does not speak much. For the first month we had huge problems. It was a constant struggle. At the beginning he did not speak a word of French. I had to get the gendarme to repeat things over and over. [Turning to him] Your apprenticeship teacher told you to be yourself. Not to be someone different according to who you are with at the time. [To the judge] He laughed in our faces. Caseworker: He began with a plan to return home. It was to get training as a super means to return home. According to his parents so many things are left hanging. Things are left unsaid, things that could be serious. You can’t tell us you don’t feel affection for your parents! You have to be able to tell the truth so we can help you reestablish contact with them. You can’t ask a French host family to assume this kind of responsibility. It is not normal. Judge: I am very torn. You are doing yourself violence here. It is better to have a framework in your life and be structured. It is impossible to know beyond what you tell us. Before you couldn’t stay with the foster family because of the rules, then you had trouble with the apprenticeship [In the context of public hearings and debates on the Islamic head scarf in public schools, he had refused to remove a woolen cap in school but later complied with the rule and apologized]. We cannot decide what is best. I am ordering an investigation with your parents in Romania to see how they live and how they viewed your departure. I will maintain the placement for six months [in a professional boarding school during the week



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Court personnel in this and other hearings expressed a common fear about the possibilities for integrating foreign migrants permanently into French society. These fears reflect French understandings of proper family structures, identity construction, child agency, and autonomy that are at odds with those among the migrant children arriving in France alone.

Conclusion As we have seen, French police, judges, and caseworkers were increasingly wary of the possibility of integrating permanently unauthorized migrants, particularly child vagrants, into French society and opted instead for temporary warehousing through placement in state institutions such as foster homes, residential facilities, or boarding schools and/or through detention in juvenile prisons before forced deportation or assisted returns to their home country. The judicial apparatus relies on confinement regimes that include waiting zones outside French territory, court supervision, and prisons. Unaccompanied irregular migrants are particularly problematic because their mobility and vulnerability garner sympathy but also challenge the ability of law enforcement and the courts to supervise and control young at-risk people. Despite a rhetorical and institutional commitment to the humanitarian goals of assistance, foreign migrants were denied their legal rights and deported, admitted to France but denied asylum, and disproportionately subjected to prosecution in the courts. In Paris they were issued summons for hearings that could not be delivered, detained pending trial, sentenced in absentia, and given relatively harsh penalties for nonviolent property offenses. Recall that all of the irregular minors I met in the Youth Detention Center were awaiting trial for theft or immigration violations. Legislation passed since 2003 has restricted the legalization and naturalization of young foreigners and has made integration and settlement in France increasingly difficult, if not impossible. Even protective and assistance measures such as placement within state shelters or foster families were premised on a return “home.” NGOs and child advocates’ criticism of the treatment of unaccompanied minors highlights the failure of a variety of French institutions and personnel—including the police, judges, prosecutors, caseworkers, and politicians—to assure



with weekend and holiday visits to the foster family] to give you time to sort things out, prove that you can adapt to France, and pay the price of a break with the other half.


the protection of a vulnerable population. These failures fundamentally challenge the reputation of France as a preeminent champion of human rights and a preferred destination of asylum seekers. Importantly, they have provided no deterrent effect as the numbers of young minors seeking to enter the land of the rights of man continue to increase (Anafé, 2008: 19). The proliferation of detention regimes for unauthorized child migrants in France and elsewhere raises important issues with regard to the public policies that apply to this vulnerable population. Groups of unskilled and unschooled young people setting out alone to escape persecution, abuse, and neglect or to seek better opportunities abroad encounter both suspicion and resistance. In a context where there is no demand for an unskilled immigrant labor force and fears about economic migrants from the global East and South taking advantage of Western European generosity, ambivalence about child criminals can be displaced onto criminal organizations, onto the individuals who profit from their crossing of borders, and onto the child migrants themselves. When these child migrants continue to offend, choose life in squats or on the street, or resist mainstream norms in families and in school, they are too often subjected to more severe norms of accountability and correction. This material leads us to the debates within anthropology that surround children’s rights and agency. One of the most contentious issues involves when and how to attribute agency. Do we assign agency only to those actions we label as morally good or socially normative? How do we apply the notion of agency to members of irregular or illegal groups such as street children or youth gangs? Do we listen to young Islamic women who cover their heads and risk expulsion from school in France or underage brides in polygamous communities in Texas who insist on their right to remain in those living arrangements? Similar questions arise regarding the impact of the doctrine of the best interests of the child on individual life projects. Does the return of child migrants to impoverished families in Eastern Europe, Africa, or Central America serve their best interest when they are subject to exploitation and neglect or are forced to leave school to provide for their families? Whose interests are served when children who cross borders illegally and alone in search of family, education, or work are detained and deported? We need to ask when agency becomes a politicized public policy issue and a weapon to be used against children. When do the rights of children serve as proxies for more pressing legal and political agendas? Irregular migrants have become increasingly visible as a problem here in the US because of intensified transnational immigration and a radical



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shift in sources of new migration from Europe or Canada to Latin America or Asia. As a result of the war on terror and the post-9/11 national security apparatus, crackdowns on illegal immigration have made immigration law violations the fastest growing form of incarceration, including the detention of families with children (Talbot, 2008). Every year thousands of undocumented minors are apprehended and deported back to unknown conditions, or detained and placed in removal proceedings in immigration courts, many without legal representation (Bhaba and Schmidt, 2006; Byrne, 2008; Women’s Refugee Commission, 2009). Careful anthropological analyses of children at the crossroads can make important contributions by interrogating the processes used to define child migrants, by identifying the ways in which they are treated as victims or threats, and by highlighting the interplay of policy and the law in an international context marked by economic crisis and political instability.

Notes 1. In 2007, 142 of 822 foreign minors who arrived at Roissy-Charles De Gaulle were reclassified as adults based on the controversial skeletal development determination mentioned above. 2. See the testimony of various stakeholders at a June 20, 2008, conference on the reception and treatment of unaccompanied minors at Roissy-Charles De Gaulle airport (Anafé, 2008). 3. A French researcher conducted in-depth ethnographic research, participant observation and interviews with border patrol personnel in the Roissy waiting zone between December 2004 and January 2008 and reported on the ways irregular migrants, including unaccompanied juveniles, were refused entry, detained in the waiting zone, and sent back to their country of origin or the last stop before arrival in France. This process applied to two brothers from the Ivory Coast, aged 12 and 15, who fled that country after their parents and extended family members were murdered in ethnic riots and traveled alone to Paris. They spent several days in the waiting zone before being deported to China, the last stop on their flight from Africa (Makaremi, 2008: 60). 4. In Paris prosecutors continued a long-standing practice of contesting minors’ underage status and subjecting them to mandatory and controversial scientific assessments of bone development to determine age. The clinical examination includes a wrist x-ray and a comparison with samples of a large study conducted in the 1930s among an upper-middle class, white North American population. This test was problematic for a numbers of reasons. There was no reference sample for youth of foreign ancestry or for the French population. It had a margin of error estimated to be between 18 months and 2 years because of different rates of maturation as well as the nutritional deficiencies that young minors experienced in situations of war and economic deprivation. Inspectors concluded after interviews at courts throughout the



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5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15.

The Production of Criminal Migrant Children nation that only those departments with the highest numbers of unaccompanied minors used the test to determine age, predicating assistance and protection on minority status. Furthermore, this “scientific” measure of age quickly became a substitute for the more comprehensive and time-intensive social inquiries customarily used to establish family background, personality development, and current circumstances (Inspection Générale des Affaires Sociales, 2005: 23–25). The remaining 20 percent were civil cases involving unaccompanied minors from Africa, Asia, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe who sought social welfare benefits and legalized status as political refugees or legal residents. As a result of the law of September 9, 2002, minors aged 13–16 who violate the terms of probationary supervision pending trial (contrôle judiciaire) may be sent to prison. Punitive sentences included probationary supervision (34 percent), pretrial detentions (39 percent), and prison sentences (34 percent). See March 18, 2003–239, law on internal security which punished deliberate obstruction of access or movement in stairwells and entrances in public housing units and prison terms for such offenses (www.legifrance.gouv.fr). The September 9, 2002, law permits judges to send youth who violate the terms of probation pending trial to closed juvenile centers or prison. The excuse of minority automatically reduces the adult penalty by half. Judges may continue to use juvenile sentencing guidelines even for recidivists but they changed from being the rule to the exception. Law of August 10, 2007, reinforcing the fight against the recidivism of adults and minors (www.legisfrance.gouv.fr). (Wacquant, 2004: 124). For powerful accounts of the global exportation of the US prison complex to the developing world, backed by private security companies and supported by drug, antigang, and juvenile justice legislation, see Nagel and Asumah (2007) and Venkatesh and Kassimir (2007). Sixty percent of the cases involved misdemeanors and the remaining 40 percent were crimes. Comparition immédiate is a procedure for immediate trials and judgments following arrest and police custody that is reserved for adults. It applies only if the penalty is a prison term of at least 2 years and not more than 7 years. Defendants can ask for a delay to prepare their defense and have access to counsel but are detained pending trial. If convicted at the hearing they go directly to prison. Libération, September 15, 2000. This is true in a social and legal sense as parents are held liable for their children’s delinquent actions and the damages that may result until they turn 18, the age of legal majority.

Bibliography Anafé (2008) Mineurs isolés en zone d’attente, Défenseure des Enfants. Available at: www.anafe.org/mineurs.php. Accessed June 20, 2008.



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V. Bell (1993) “Governing Childhood: Neo-Liberalism and the Law”, Economy and Society, 22(3): 390–403. J. Bhaba and S. Schmidt (2006) Seeking Asylum Alone: Unaccompanied and Separated Children and Refugee Protection in the U.S. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center on Human Rights). D. Bigo (1996) “Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of Governmentality”, Alternatives, Global, Local and Political, 27: 63–92. O. Byrne (2008) Unaccompanied Children in the U.S. A Literature Review (New York: Vera Institute of Justice). D. Cole (2003) Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism (New York: The New Press). S. B. Coutin (2000) Legalizing Moves. Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggle for US Residency (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan). N. De Genova (2005) Working the Boundaries: Race, Space and “Illegality” in Mexican Chicago (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). N. De Genova (2007) “The Production of Culprits: From Deportability to Detainability in the Aftermath of ‘Homeland Security’ ”, Citizenship Studies, 11(5): 421–448. D. Diminescu (2003) Visibles mais peu nombreux: Les circulations migratoires roumaines (Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme). D. Fassin (2005) “Compassion and Repression. The Moral Economy of Immigration Policy in France”, Cultural Anthropology, 20(3): 362–387. J. Floch (2000) Rapport fait au nom de la Commission d’enquête sur la situation dans les prisons françaises, Tome 1 2000/07, no. 2521 (Paris: Assemblée Nationale). Available at: www.assemblee-nationale/fr/rap-enq/r2521-1.asp. Accessed October 8, 2005. D. Garland (1996) “The Limits of the Sovereign State,” British Journal of Criminology, 36(4): 445–471. D. Garland (2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Inspection Générale des Affaires Sociales (2005) Mission d’analyse et de proposition sur les conditions d’accueil des mineurs étrangers isolés en France, rapport no. 2005 010. (Paris: Ministère des Affaires Sociales). Inspection Générale des Services Judiciaires (2004) Juridiction des Mineurs de Paris, Le Tribunal pour Enfants (fiche 2-22), Le Parquet des Mineurs (fiche 23-41). (Paris: Ministère de la Justice). M. Iserte (2008) “Enquête en ‘zone d’attente réservée’ de l’aéroport de ParisCharles De Gaulle: Vers une gestion sécuritaire des ‘flux migratoires’, ” Cultures & Conflits, 71: 31–53. C. Kobelinsky (2008) “ ‘Faire sortir les déboutés’. Gestion, contrôle et expulsion dans les centres pour demandeurs d’asile en France,” Cultures & Conflits, 71: 113–130. L. Le Caisne (2008) Avoir 16 ans à Fleury. Ethnographie d’un centre de jeunes détenus (Paris: Seuil). C. Makaremi (2008) “Pénalisation de la circulation et reconfigurations de la frontière: Le maintien des étangers en zone d’attente”, Cultures & Conflits, 71: 55–73. H. Motomura (2006) Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press).



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M. Nagel and S. Asumah (eds.) (2007) Prisons and Punishment. Reconsidering Global Penality (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc.). N. Rose (1996) “The Death of the Social? Refiguring the Territory of Government”, Economy and Society, 25(3): 327–346. N. Rose (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). M. Talbot (2008) “The Lost Children. Immigrant Families in Detention”, The New Yorker, March 3. Available at www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/ 03/03/080303fa_fact_talbot. Accessed April 16, 2010. S. J. Terrio (2004) “Migration, Displacement, and Violence: Prosecuting Romanian Street Children at the Paris Palace of Justice”, International Migration, 42(5): 5–31. S. J. Terrio (2008) “New Barbarians at the Gates of Paris? Prosecuting Undocumented Minors in the Juvenile Court—The Problem of the ‘Petits Roumains’ ”, Anthropological Quarterly, 81(4): 935–964. S. J. Terrio (2009) Judging Mohammed. Juvenile Delinquency, Immigration, and Exclusion at the Paris Palace of Justice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). L. Wacquant (1999) Les prisons de la misère (Paris: Editions Raisons d’Agir). L. Wacquant (2004) “Comment sortir du piège sécuritaire?” Contradictions, 22: 120–133. Women’s Refugee Commission & Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe (2009) Halfway Home: Unaccompanied Children in Immigration Custody (New York: Women’s Refugee Commission). E. Zilberg (2007) “Refugee Gang Youth: Zero Tolerance and the Security State in Contemporary U.S.-Salvadoran Relations” in S. A. Venkatesh and R. Kassimir (eds.) Youth, Globalization, and the Law (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), 61–89.



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Protecting the Rights of Internally Displaced Children Elizabeth G. Ferris1

Introduction Children who are forcibly displaced from their communities as a result of conflict or natural disasters have particular needs and vulnerabilities. The international community has made significant progress in developing policies and programs to protect refugee children, but less has been done to uphold the rights of internally displaced children. Following an overview of the experiences of internally displaced children (IDP children), this study examines the legal provisions for upholding the rights of IDP children and assesses the roles of both national governments and the international community in exercising their responsibilities. The ways in which national governments have incorporated these principles into their national legislation are illustrated with examples from various countries. The study concludes with an exploration of efforts to support the participation of displaced children in decisions affecting their future and in finding durable solutions to their displacement.

Needs and vulnerabilities of internally displaced children It is likely that at least half of the world’s 26 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) are under the age of 18 and are among the most vulnerable populations affected by conflicts and natural disasters (IDMC, 2009). Children’s resilience and coping abilities are often weakened by the forces that caused them to leave their communities. Often the crises which cause displacement also lead to frayed social structures and the breakdown of law and order, rendering protection and assistance both more necessary and more difficult to extend. Conflict-induced internal displacement is especially harrowing, as IDPs 97



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flee human rights violations from one or more parties to the conflict and remain vulnerable within the borders of their own country. The national authorities in charge of protecting IDPs are often those responsible for their displacement. Internally displaced children face a range of protection issues. Most obviously, there is often a lack of physical safety and security in IDP camps and in other places of refuge. Armed groups may operate from IDP camps, as in Chad, or attack them, as in Darfur and Somalia. Displaced children may be sent to the frontlines and also used as porters, informants, guards, or sex slaves by armed groups. The Uganda People’s Defense Forces and its allied local defense units as well as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have committed rape and other sexual crimes against children. The LRA is often referred to as an “army of children,” and has allegedly recruited children from southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the Central African Republic as well as, prior to 2006, from Uganda.2 Children displaced by conflicts and natural disasters are among those vulnerable to trafficking, including for forced labor (Kälin, 2005: 10–11). Children are more likely than adults to be exposed to landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) during and after conflicts. Indeed, the UN agency mandated to protect and advocate for children’s rights, UNICEF, is the lead UN agency for mine-awareness education (OCHA, 2007; UN Mine Action Service, 2004). It is possible that displaced children, as they are away from their neighborhoods, are more likely to be exposed to these dangers than non-displaced children are. Mines and ERW dislodged due to natural disasters may also pose risks to children. Proximity to violent situations and breakdown of social structures also increases the exposure of displaced children (primarily girls but also boys) to sexual violence, as in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka where girls have been attacked while walking to school. In the DRC 54,000 victims of sexual violence were identified between 2004 and March 2007, 16 percent of whom were children (UN Department of Public Information, 2007: 30). During the first 6 months of 2008, over 5000 rape cases were reported in North Kivu (IRIN, 2008).3 Although there are no figures on how many of these were children, it is likely that the numbers include many girls under the age of 18. Insecurity and violence against displaced children are often compounded by restrictions or denial of humanitarian access to displaced populations in conflict zones. The governments of Sudan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar (Burma) severely restrict access and in the DRC, Afghanistan, and Iraq insecurity makes it difficult for humanitarian



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agencies to operate. In some countries, such as Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Laos, and Uzbekistan, the United Nations (UN) has not been able to respond to internal displacement at all, primarily because of the governments’ opposition (IDMC, 2007: 77). Conflicts that displace children affect them not only through forced recruitment, attacks, and sexual violence. Conflicts also weaken social norms, change patterns of family life, and create conditions in which domestic violence increases, including violence against children. Conflict also interacts with poverty to increase the vulnerability of displaced children and can lead families to sell or force their children into labor, marriage, or prostitution. In addition, it is widely recognized that discrimination in the provision of humanitarian assistance in conflicts, natural disasters, and situations of protracted displacement affects women and girls especially (Martin, 2004: 61–86). Displaced children often suffer from food insecurity, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and limited access to healthcare, raising the risk of infection and disease to which children are more susceptible than adults. Displaced children are among the groups at increased risk for psychosocial trauma and thus require critical support. Within the large population of IDP children, several groups are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including those who have been orphaned or separated from their parents by conflict or natural disaster, who live in a female- or child-headed household, or who are disabled or suffer from disease. Urban IDP children also seem to be particularly vulnerable. While information on IDPs forcibly displaced to urban centers in conflict-affected countries is difficult to obtain, they face particular needs as they are often not registered with the government, easily identifiable, or targeted for assistance by humanitarian organizations (IDMC, 2008a). They often lack documents due to the nature of their flight, and many face discrimination in accessing public services.

Education and displaced children According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, in 2007, “in the majority of countries affected by internal displacement, children lost access to education and were forced to work in order to survive” (IDMC, 2008b: 8). This lack of access to education is most often due to poverty brought on by displacement which precludes families from being able to afford schools and related costs. Poverty also forces many children to work and girls into early marriage, trafficking, or prostitution; it usually



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also increases their workload in the home, including by caring for younger siblings. In situations of displacement, there is often a lack of educational infrastructure and teachers, precisely because of the conflict or natural disaster which produced the displacement. In the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the destruction of schools precluded IDP children from attending schools. The loss of documentation, including school documents, may also make it difficult for displaced children to enroll in schools in their community of displacement. For example, in Nepal, students are required to produce documentation from their previous schools in order to enroll in schools in their place of displacement—documentation which was left behind during displacement. Conflict and insecurity also impact children’s attendance and safety. For example, there have been attacks on schools in Darfur, and in the DRC, the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) forcibly recruited a school’s entire 5th grade in 2002. Insecurity impedes international organizations’ ability to provide education to displaced children, for example, in Afghanistan and the DRC (Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, 2004: 10). In Pakistan, the displacement of over a million people in a 2-week period in May 2009 resulted in thousands of displaced children unable to attend school because authorities were simply not prepared for such an influx of new students (IRIN, 2009). In other cases, discrimination against IDP children, either because of their ethnicity, language, or their status as displaced limits their access to schools. Having reviewed the specific needs and vulnerabilities of IDP children, we turn now to a consideration of the legal nature of internal displacement as it compares to the displacement of refugees. As the section below demonstrates, the extent to which the needs of IDP children are met depends on whether they are recognized as refugees or are considered to be IDPs.

Categories of displacement: Definitions matter The broad category of forced migrants includes both those who leave their countries in search of safety and those internally displaced. Even though the reasons for their displacement may be the same, there are major legal and political differences between those who cross an international border and those who are internally displaced. Presently there are an estimated 10 million refugees and 26 million IDPs displaced by



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conflict, reflecting the difficulty people fleeing conflict have in crossing international borders.4 A refugee is defined in the 1951 Refugee Convention as one who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country” (UN General Assembly, 1951: Art. 1 A.2). IDPs are defined in the UN Guiding Principle on Internal Displacement as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border” (UNHCR, 1998). In comparison, the refugee definition is restricted to the five categories of persecution as specified in the Convention. While the refugee definition is enshrined in a legally binding convention which has been ratified by 144 governments, the IDP definition does not have the status of international law. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, while drawn from binding international human rights and humanitarian law, are not themselves an international treaty or convention. However, at the 2005 World Summit, the United Nations General Assembly recognized the Guiding Principles as an “important international framework for the protection of internally displaced persons and resolve[d] to take effective measures to increase the protection of internally displaced persons.”5 Not only is the normative framework for refugees more solidly established, but the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has almost six decades of expertise and experience in working with refugees. There is no corresponding international agency responsible for IDPs; rather, for the past 10 years, there have been various attempts to assign responsibility to relevant UN agencies in order to ensure consistency in approach and accountability. These efforts represent an attempt by the international community to respond to the needs of IDPs, but they are less established and accountable than the UN agency responsible for refugees. While the UNHCR and governments of host countries that are parties to the Refugee Convention are responsible for protecting and assisting refugees, protection and assistance of IDP children is the responsibility of national governments. To date, about 15 governments have incorporated aspects of the Guiding Principles into national laws and policies



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and some regional organizations—the African Union, the Great Lakes states, the Organization of American States—have incorporated internal displacement into statements, conventions, or protocols.6 Before examining national laws and policies which uphold the rights of IDP children, we shall first consider various international instruments which lay the foundation for the protection of human rights.

International instruments relating to child rights There are a host of international conventions and legal standards which guarantee the basic human rights of all children, including IDP children, such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and Optional Protocols, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990).7 The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, presented to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1998, affirm that national authorities are responsible for protecting and assisting IDPs and that IDPs have a right to request assistance as needed. In terms of provisions specifically pertaining to children, Guiding Principle 4 states that IDP children are entitled to “protection and assistance required by their condition and to treatment which takes into account their special needs.” Principles 11 and 13 call for the protection of IDP children against recruitment into hostilities, sale into marriage, sexual exploitation, or forced labor. The right to family reunification is affirmed in Guiding Principle 17. Guiding Principle 23 recalls the right to education and states that authorities must ensure that IDP children receive “free and compulsory” primary education which “should respect their cultural identity, language and religion.” In addition to the Guiding Principles, there have been several initiatives at the regional level to codify norms related to internal displacement. The Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region (2006), which includes ten Protocols and four Programs of Action, covers displacement induced by conflicts, natural disasters, and development. Article 6 of the Pact’s Protocol on Protection and Assistance to IDPs commits member states “to adopt and implement the Guiding Principles as a regional framework for providing protection and assistance to internally displaced persons in the Great Lakes Region.”8 In October 2009, 17 countries adopted the African Union Convention for the Prevention of Internal Displacement and the Protection of and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, or Kampala



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Convention, which is based on the Guiding Principles. This convention is the first legally binding instrument on internal displacement in the world. The Kampala Convention includes provisions against the recruitment of children into armed forces and calls for special protection measures for women and children. These international instruments make it clear that displaced children have rights and that it is national governments which are responsible for ensuring that these rights are upheld.

Efforts to protect internally displaced children: National laws and policies9 Many governments have made positive strides in improving the plight of IDPs, including children, in their countries. Nonetheless, many governments lack the will and/or resources to develop or implement laws and policies on IDPs generally or on displaced children in particular. In reviewing the national legislation and policy frameworks adopted by governments to address internal displacement, there are several instances which reference IDP children—with most focused on education-related issues—but rigorous attention to the needs of IDP children is lacking and implementation often remains a problem. Countries with national laws and policies mentioning IDP children Uganda is one of the few countries with a national policy on IDPs. Adopted in 2004, the National Policy for Internally Displaced Persons calls for the “full participation” of IDPs, especially women, in the planning and management of responses (Government of Uganda, 2004). However, in practice, reports are that participation of IDPs has been minimal and there are indications that there is little awareness of the policy among IDPs (DANIDA and COTIR, 2005: 5). In 2006, a workshop with the government, UN, police, and IDP and civil society organizations, convened by UN Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons Walter Kälin and the BrookingsBern Project on Internal Displacement and hosted by the Government of Uganda, highlighted various impediments to full implementation of the national policy, including the “lack of communication between national and local authorities; little consultation or communication with IDPs; an under-resourced and often absent police force; an ineffective system for providing resources to local government; and insufficient attention to land issues and other arrangements for IDP returns” (Miller, 2007: 78). In 2007, the government’s Karamoja Integrated Disarmament



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and Development Program (2007) recognized that special protection must be granted to disarming women and children. Assistance is also to be extended to resettling Karamojong children from urban centers, including Kampala, where an estimated 90 percent of children are from Karamoja, an area long prone to droughts, floods, violence, and food insecurity (IRIN, 2008). Colombia’s Law 387 on internal displacement includes provisions for education and social assistance to displaced children. For example, the law provides that the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare give priority to “infants, minors, especially orphans, and family groups.” Discussion of Colombia’s laws and policies related to IDP children and education is presented below. Guatemala’s Agreement on Resettlement of the Population Groups Uprooted by the Armed Conflict (1994) calls for special protection for displaced (refugees, internally displaced, and returnees), female-headed households, widows, and orphans. Iraq’s National Policy on Displacement (July 2008) identifies a series of rights of IDPs, the first of which is the right to participation in decision making and implementation processes. Referencing Guiding Principle 22, the policy states that women, children, and youth should participate in the planning, designing, and implementing of return, integration, and resettlement. Other key provisions include recognition of the right of IDP children to health care and education, including acceptance of students’ and teachers’ certificates earned abroad and flexible programs in line with the Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early Recovery; and for tracing and reunification efforts for unaccompanied minors, including reference to Guiding Principles 14 and 15 pertaining to these matters. The policy also stipulates that special attention be paid to protecting IDP and returnee women and children “from all types of exploitation and violence.” Sierra Leone’s Resettlement Strategy (revised October 2001) and its National Recovery Strategy for Newly Accessible Areas (May 2002) include provisions of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) services provided to child ex-combatants, in concert with UN agencies. The recovery strategy recognizes the needs and vulnerabilities of children, especially young girls who were combatants, who suffered from sexual violence, and who resorted to prostitution, as well as urban street children. This strategy also outlines the Rapid Response Education program for refugee and IDP children out of school, developed by the Norwegian Refugee Council, UNICEF, and the Ministry of Education and Sports.



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Liberia’s Declaration on the Rights and Protection of Liberian IDPs (2002) recognizes sexual and gender-based violence against female and girl IDPs in camps. The National Community Resettlement and Reintegration Strategy (2004) includes “unaccompanied/separated children,” child- and female-headed households, and expectant and lactating mothers among “persons with special needs” during return and reintegration. It also provides that agricultural interventions should give “particular attention” to female- and child-headed households. Civil society and NGOs are recognized as “at the forefront” of all reconciliation activities, “with attention given to the equal participation of women and children.” Also of note is the provision which calls for the protection of property and inheritance rights of children, especially orphans. In addition, a range of “special measures” are to be implemented pertaining to IDP registration, profiling, and tracing for separated children and child-headed households, returnee monitoring, and gender training of local security forces for protection responses to women and girls. In Angola, Decree No. 1/01 January 5, 2001, references the Guiding Principles. The Council of Ministers Decree No. 79/02 (2002) is mainly concerned with children in terms of those separated from their families and those who are school-aged. Included in its scope are provisions for the collection of data on vulnerable groups and registration of separated children as well as measures to ensure families remain together during resettlement/return. Also, the decree includes various provisions to ensure that children are enrolled in school and provided with materials. The Government of Sri Lanka and the UN developed a Joint Strategy to Meet the Immediate Needs of Returned Internally Displaced Persons in 2002–2003, which includes nutrition education programs for children, expectant and nursing mothers; psychosocial support services; emergency education kits and uniforms for an estimated 150,000 expected IDP returnee children; and expedited education and readmission programs for dropouts. Nepal’s Relief Program for Internally Displaced People Due to Conflict for FY 2004/05 provides for the placement of orphans in orphanages as well as temporary shelter, medical treatment, and scholarships to children. Nepal’s National Policy on Internally Displaced Persons, 2063 (2007) calls for special attention to displaced children and orphans among other targeted vulnerable groups. Interventions include prioritized humanitarian assistance; free primary education; nutrition and food programs; and promoting awareness on the exploitation of displaced children.



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The Law of Georgia on Internally Displaced Persons (as amended 2006) provides for the extension of IDP status to a child if one or both parents are IDPs based on parental consent. Decree #47 on Approving of the State Strategy for IDPs, 2007, considers “single mothers and their children” and orphans as among the “extremely vulnerable” IDPs and calls for improving their living conditions and access to social services, especially healthcare and education. In Turkey, the Van Provincial Action Plan for Responding to IDP Needs (2006) includes a host of provisions on IDP children, pertaining to their participation, along with that of women and youth, in “decision-making processes and other matters that may influence existing conditions.” Also envisaged is the establishment of model villages with child-friendly spaces and model settlements for IDPs designed to cater to women and children, with community centers and parks. Vocational training programs are also to be expanded and to target women and youth and free, hot lunches are to be provided in urban area schools to increase IDP child enrollment and attendance. In all, 18 countries have referenced IDP children, either directly or indirectly, in their national laws and policies. As there are at least 50 countries with significant numbers of IDPs, this means that only one-third have sought to respond to the needs of IDPs by adopting laws and policies. Countries such as Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, even though experiencing large-scale internal displacement, have yet to develop specific laws on internal displacement. For countries that have adopted laws and policies, children are usually mentioned in these laws as “vulnerable groups” requiring special attention. In some cases, these policies reflect the particular nature of the conflict. Thus, Sierra Leone makes provisions for child ex-combatants, Sri Lanka focuses on returnee children, and Turkey’s provisions reflect the protracted nature of displacement. Almost all of those governments which have policies relating to IDP children single out orphans or separated/unaccompanied children as deserving of special attention. Interestingly, only the governments of Uganda, Iraq, and Turkey highlight the importance of consulting with IDPs in their laws and policies. However, because there are usually gaps between laws and their actual implementation, the adoption of a law or policy does not mean an automatic improvement in the response to IDP children. Implementation is especially hindered in situations of recurring or protracted displacement, as in Colombia and Iraq where ongoing displacement and insecurity make it difficult to identify and assess IDPs, let alone



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implement a systematic response. Governments must also ensure that their policies are effectively implemented at the local level. Given the responsibility of national authorities for IDPs, it is incumbent on them to ensure that the rights of displaced children are upheld and protected. But as many governments lack the capacity to protect and assist displaced children, the international community has tried to respond by developing a number of policies and guidelines. We turn now to an examination of some of those initiatives.

International humanitarian agencies and internally displaced children While UN agencies and NGOs have made significant progress in developing policies and programs to protect refugee children, less has been done to uphold the rights of IDP children—perhaps understandable given that there is a much longer history of international engagement with refugees. UNHCR’s efforts to develop policies on refugee children date back to the late 1980s—at least a decade before the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were presented to the United Nations. UNHCR developed a series of guidelines for working with and protecting refugee children.10 These documents were recognized internationally as important guidelines for assisting children in armed conflict. Written primarily for UNHCR staff, the Guidelines explain the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and examine the various needs and rights of refugee children, based on the CRC. In 1997, UNHCR and the Save the Children Alliance created Action for the Rights of Children (ARC) in response to the 1996 Graça Machel report, “The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children.”11 To strengthen the capacity of UNHCR, governments, and NGO field staff to protect and care for children, the project developed a series of “resource packs” and conducted trainings of facilitators and workshops.12 In 1999, UNCHR and NGO partners published Protecting Refugees: A Field Guide for NGOs,13 on which the “Reach Out Refugee Protection Training Kit” was based. This included a series of training modules on basic refugee protection, including an optional module on IDPs.14 The IDP module was developed by the Norwegian Refugee Council, it is based on the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and it gives particular attention to the issues faced by IDP children. In addition to the Guiding Principles, there are a number of other resources which have been developed by UN agencies and NGOs to promote the rights of IDPs, including displaced children.15



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Some of the materials developed to recognize and address the trauma experienced by displaced populations include reference to refugee and IDP children. UNHCR’s Sexual Violence Against Refugees: Guidelines on Prevention and Response aims to promote awareness of and more effective UN and NGO responses to the incidence of sexual violence against refugees, IDPs, and returnees (UNHCR, 1995). The guidelines note that children are among those particularly at risk. Developed in collaboration with UNHCR for those who work with refugees and displaced persons, WHO’s Mental Health of Refugees includes sections on “stress and relaxation,” “helping refugee children,” “helping victims of torture and other violence,” and “helping victims of rape and their communities” (WHO, 1996). This was followed in 2000 by WHO’s “Declaration of Cooperation in Mental Health of Refugees, Displaced and Other Populations Affected by Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations” which was developed on the basis of conclusions and recommendations of seven conferences on mental health of populations affected by conflict from 1986 to 1998. The Declaration’s section on children and adolescents states, “. . . because conflict, forced displacement, family and social disruptions are serious dangers to their psychosocial development and well-being . . . mental health support should be an integral part of their protection, health care and education.” The Declaration calls on health professionals to prioritize early family reunion, communication with separated family members, and to work to prevent and respond to a series of issues facing children and youth (WHO, 2001). In addition to these refugee and IDP specific guidelines, a number of other resolutions, policies, and mechanisms have been adopted which have application to IDP children, including: • Twelve UN General Assembly resolutions (1997–2008) and six UN Security Council resolutions on children and armed conflict (1999–2005), including UNSC resolutions 1539 and 1612.16 The Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, established in 1998 by UNGA Resolution 51/77, has recognized the specific needs of displaced children, including those internally displaced.17 • Operational guidelines such as the Sphere Project’s Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response (1997); Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early Reconstruction (2004). These assorted guidelines, resolutions, and mechanisms are evidence that the international community has tried to translate concern with



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displaced children into operational guidance for program design and implementation. In addition, international mechanisms addressing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity help to ensure accountability to perpetrators of these egregious acts. Particularly of note are the International Criminal Court’s trial of Thomas Lubanga, “one of the first high-profile trials focusing exclusively on the issue of child soldiers” (Human Rights Watch, 2009), as well as the court’s trial of Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui on charges of ordering attacks on civilians, sexual slavery, rape, and enlisting child soldiers. It is also hoped that these trials and other arrests issued and made for war crimes and crimes against humanity deter would-be perpetrators. In 2007, Human Rights Watch found that Lubanga’s trial had done just that in eastern Congo (Human Rights Watch, 2009). But gaps remain and many of these documents are aspirational rather than of concrete efforts which fully address IDP children’s concerns. Many of these documents are premised on the idea that IDP children need special attention from authorities rather than on the principle that the capacities and coping strategies of IDP children can serve as a basis for improving their conditions, upholding their rights, and strengthening their communities. In fact, efforts to promote and protect the basic rights of IDPs seem to be most effective when they constructively involve IDPs. We now turn to the issue of consultations with displaced children in both assistance and in seeking durable solutions to their displacement.

Participation of IDP children and youth Children must be seen as agents for constructive change with experiences, perspectives, and opinions to be taken into account rather than as passive victims or aid recipients. To this effect, many international standards and guidelines stress the importance of the participation of children and of IDPs in the decisions which affect their lives, including the Guiding Principles.18 The Framework for National Responsibility calls for consultation with IDP communities: “A national policy on internal displacement will be most effective when developed in full consultation with IDP communities.” It also calls on governments to “work closely with civil society groups and local NGOs working with the internally displaced and advocating on their behalf” (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2005: 17). UNHCR’s manual also establishes that the views of IDPs should be sought out throughout all stages of planning, implementing, and monitoring activities (UNHCR, 2002). As a recent study by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement



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makes clear, there are both normative and pragmatic reasons for consulting with IDPs: consulting with IDPs is a way of affirming their dignity and upholding their rights—and it also makes for good practice on the operational level. Programs developed with a community’s input are more likely to be supported and sustainable than those that are imposed (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2008a). Mary Anderson’s Listening Project finds that one of the main criticisms which beneficiaries have of humanitarian assistance programs is precisely the lack of consultation—or of meaningful consultation. As she explains, “resentment is increased when people are urged to ‘participate’ in program planning and design, but they soon see that choices and decisions have already been made—outside” (Anderson, 2008: 100). Participation is not only a right of IDPs generally; it is also a right of children. One of the main pillars of the CRC is respect for the views of the child. Article 12 of the CRC provides that children have the right to have a say in matters affecting their own lives; Article 13 affirms a child’s right to freedom of expression. UNHCR is guided by its Participatory Assessments Handbook in its consultations and notes that children are well-placed to provide insight into their family’s situation in displacement as well as ideas to improve their situation; yet there are practical considerations—and gaps—when applying the handbook to child consultations.19 The Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies recognize the importance of children’s participation in decisions about education. Given the specific vulnerabilities they face, the participation of girls is especially crucial. The 1996 Machel report on the “Impact of armed conflict on children” states that “. . . Adolescents have special needs and special strengths. Young people should be seen in that light; as survivors and active participants in creating solutions, not just as victims or problems.”20 . The report goes on to say that “[g]overnments should actively encourage and support coalitions that represent the views of parliamentarians, the judiciary, religious communities, educators, the media, professional associations, the private sector, NGOs and children themselves” (Machel, 1996: 76). There are several positive examples where refugee and IDP children have participated in consultative processes. Participatory research conducted by the Women’s Refugee Commission with displaced adolescents between 1999 and 2005 found that youth have “untapped potential” with few opportunities in terms of education, training, work, and constructive participation in their communities—especially as the average length of displacement increases.21



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“Refugee and Returnee Children in Southern Africa: Perceptions and Experiences of Violence” (UNHCR, 2005a) reports on participatory, child-centered, qualitative research carried out on violence against refugee children, especially sexual and gender-based violence in Angola, South Africa, and Zambia. “The Rights of Internally Displaced Children: Selected Field Practices from UNICEF’s Experience” (Mahalingam et al., 2002) examines UNICEF’s response to IDP children, which is based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and involves advocacy, assessment, care, and protection. The report stresses the need to better educate IDP children on their rights, the “need for improved institutional and thematic coordination” in the field and at the international level. UNICEF’s efforts to develop an IDPled psychosocial program for children in Colombia—“El Retorno de la Alegría” (The Return to Happiness)—are summarized as was the training of primary school teachers in Sri Lanka for sensitivity with IDP child students. In Sierra Leone, a coalition of youth groups has called on the government to establish a National Youth Commission as promised by the president in 2007 to address youth unemployment. The enthusiasm and commitment of Sierra Leonean youth have not been matched by the government, despite the fact that Sierra Leone has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world—60 percent, according to the government—and that disaffected, marginalized youth played a central role in the civil war as combatants.

Conclusion While this study has referred to examples of laws and policies developed by governments and international agencies toward IDP children and while there is much more that needs to be done, it is important to emphasize that there are many ways of tackling the issue. Important starting points are adoption of national laws and policies on internal displacement, coupled with other signs of government commitment— such as naming a focal point on internal displacement within the government and collecting data on displacement. In countries with large IDP populations, the development of additional laws and policies which set out the rights of IDP children and the responsibility of the government to uphold these rights may be the most effective response. In countries where there are strong policies of child protection which are recognized as applying to all children,



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including the displaced, the answer may not be in developing new policies specifically for IDP children but, rather, in ensuring that existing policies are implemented. Policies affecting the lives of IDP children typically fall in the purview of several government ministries and often may require a cooperation among governmental agencies which is difficult or impossible to obtain. The needs and resources of IDP children differ by their age, their specific situation, and their length of time in displacement. Most obviously, infants have different needs than what young adults have but the needs of infants are relatively constant in both the immediate emergency phase of a conflict or natural disaster and the long-term protracted displacement. Whether their families have been displaced for a few days or a few decades, infants and young children have specific nutrition and health needs which must be met. Displaced children also have needs, which increase over time, for identity documents to enable them to access education, livelihood opportunities, and citizenship rights. Growing up in situations of pervasive insecurity, particularly when coupled with multiple displacements, surely affects children, although research into these effects is lacking. It is likely that children who grow up in Darfurian IDP camps differ in important ways from their counterparts who remain in their villages of origin. While they may not have the same ties to their communities of origin, they may in fact have more opportunities for education and better health care than those who are not displaced. Displaced children who have spent their whole lives “in limbo,” waiting for a chance to return to Abkhazia (Georgia) or Van (Turkey), are surely shaped by this experience in ways similar to those of refugee children who grow up in a foreign country. Children who grow up internally displaced face different challenges than those who are recently displaced—challenges of identity and belonging which may affect their reaction to solutions. For example, in Colombia, most IDPs have been displaced from rural to urban areas. While their parents may hope to return home to the countryside, their children often have different aspirations. A durable solution that for parents represents a return “home” may be seen as a new displacement by their children who have grown up in a different environment and have acquired a different identity than that of their parents. This may be particularly acute for indigenous communities where losing the connection to the land often means a loss of cultural identity. As this study has demonstrated, opportunities for participation of displaced children in decisions about assistance programs and durable solutions have been quite limited. A few agencies have developed



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participatory methods for soliciting their views, but these remain exceptions. And yet, in many countries displaced adolescents have assumed responsibilities because of their displacement which are normally entrusted to adults as, for example, when they work to support their families. Their participation in decisions which affect their lives— and their futures—is not only a way of ensuring that those decisions meet their needs, but is their basic human right.

Notes 1. With thanks to Chareen Stark for her research assistance and to Andrew Solomon and Karen Gulick for commenting on an earlier draft of this study. 2. See, for example, Human Rights Watch (2003), UN (2007, 2008). 3. Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) (2008) “DRC: Rape crisis set to worsen amid Kivu chaos”, November 19, http://www.irinnews.org/ Report.aspx?ReportId=81549. Accessed March 16, 2009. 4. Refugee figures from UNHCR (2008). IDP figures from OCHA. The number of IDPs resulting from natural disasters is estimated at twice the number of those displaced by conflict although systematic data collection is lacking. 5. For example, see, Cohen (2004). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, October 2005. 6. See the newly launched Web site www.guidingprinciples.org for examples of laws and policies reflecting the Guiding Principles. 7. Note particularly Article 23(4) on Refugee Children: “The provisions of this Article apply mutatis mutandis to internally displaced children whether through natural disaster, internal armed conflicts, civil strife, breakdown of economic and social order or howsoever caused.”; Article 25 [2(b)] on Separation from Parents says States parties “Shall take all necessary measures to trace and re-unite children with parents or relatives where separation is caused by internal and external displacement arising from armed conflicts or natural disasters.” 8. Chapter 6, Art. 6(1–2). Available at: www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/idp/ GreatLakes_IDPprotocol.pdf 9. See database: “National and Regional Laws and Policies on Internal Displacement,” Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, http://www. brookings.edu/projects/idp/Laws-and-Policies/idp_policies_index.aspx 10. “Guidelines on Refugee Children” 1988; “Policy on Refugee Children” 1993; and “Refugee Children: Guidelines on Protection and Care,” 1994. Available at: www.unhcr.org 11. Avialable at: www.unicef.org/graca 12. Action for the Rights of Children (ARC), available at: www.icva.ch 13. Available at: www.unhcr.org/refworld 14. “The Reach Out Training Kit,” available at: http://www.icva.ch. IDP module developed by NRC’s Global IDP Project. 15. Materials specifically designed for IDP children (available at: www. womenscommission.org) include: “Checklist to Identify the Special Needs and Vulnerabilities of Displaced Children” (WCAC and Partners, 2009);



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16.

17.

18. 19.

20.

21.

Protecting the Rights of Internally Displaced Children Your Right to Education: A Handbook for Refugees and Displaced Communities (WCRWC, 2007); “Right to Education during Displacement: A Resource for Organizations Working with Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons” (WCRWC, 2006). Other guidelines and resources developed for IDPs generally and which discuss the needs and rights of IDP children include: “Protecting Persons Affected by Natural Disasters—IASC Operational Guidelines and Human Rights and Natural Disasters” (IASC, 2006); Handbook for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons (IASC, 2007); “Addressing Internal Displacement: A Framework for National Responsibility” (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2005); “Protecting Internally Displaced Persons: A Manual for Law and Policymakers” (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2008a). UNSCR 1539 called on the UN Secretary-General to develop a comprehensive monitoring and reporting mechanism on violations of children’s rights in situations of armed conflict, to the UNSC [S/RES/1539 (2004)]. This mechanism, the UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism Children and Armed Conflict, was established in UNSC resolution 1612 [S/RES/1612 (2005)]. See the Reports by the Office of the Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral for Children and Armed Conflict to the General Assembly: http://www.un.org/children/conflict/english/reports.html See Guiding Principles 18, 23, and 28. UNHCR (2005) The Tool for Participatory Assessments with Refugees, June 14, UNHCR notes that the term “refugee” is used to refer to all people of concern in a given situation, including IDPs. Impact of Armed Conflict on Children (1996) Report of the expert of the Secretary-General, Ms. Graça Machel, submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution 48/157, August 26, p. 15. See Women’s Refugee Commission, “Untapped Potential: Displaced Youth,” www.womenscommission.org

Bibliography M. B. Anderson (September 2008) “The Giving-Receiving Relationship: Inherently Unequal?” In DARA Humanitarian Response Index, (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan). Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement (April 2005) “Addressing Internal Displacement: A Framework for National Responsibility” (Washington, DC: Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement). Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement (October 2008a) “Moving Beyond Rhetoric: Consultation and Participation with Populations Displaced by Conflict or Natural Disasters”. Available at: http://www.brookings.edu/idp Accessed March 17, 2009. Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement (October 2008b) “Protecting Internally Displaced Persons: A Manual for Law and Policymakers,”, Washington, DC: Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement. R. Cohen (2004) “The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement: An Innovation in International Standard Setting,” Global Governance, 10: 459–480.



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DANIDA and COTIR (2005) “The Implementation of the National Policy for Internally Displaced Persons in Teso”, Report submitted to DANIDA (Human Rights and Good Governance Program) and to the Coalition for Teso IDPs Rights (COTIR), August. Cited in Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, Workshop on the Implementation of Uganda’s National Policy for Internally Displaced Persons, Background Paper, Kampala, July 3–4, 2006. Government of Uganda (August 2004) “National Policy for Internally Displaced Persons,”. Available at: http://www.brookings.edu/idp. Accessed March 12, 2009. Human Rights Watch (March 2003) “Stolen Children”. Available at: http://www. hrw.org. Accessed February 24, 2009. Human Rights Watch (January 23 2009) “The International Criminal Court Trial of Thomas Lubanga”. Available at: www.hrw.org. Accessed March 12, 2009. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) (April 2007) “Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2006,”. Available at: www.internal-displacement.org. Accessed March 12, 2009. IDMC (September 2008a) “Internal Displacement to Urban Areas: The TuftsIDMC Profiling Study”. Available at www.internal-displacement.org. Accessed March 23, 2009. IDMC (April 2008b) “Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2007”. Available at www.internal-displacement.org. Accessed March 23, 2009. IDMC (May 2009) “Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2008”. Available at www.internal-displacement.org. Accessed March 23, 2009. W. Kälin (July 2005) “Natural Disasters and IDPs’ Rights”, Forced Migration Review—Special Issue: Tsunami: Learning from the Humanitarian Response, 10–11. G. Machel (1996) “Impact of Armed Conflict on Children”. Report of the Expert of the Secretary-General, Submitted Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 48/157, August 26. S. Mahalingam, G. Narayan, and E. van der Velde (February 2002) “The Rights of Internally Displaced Children: Selected Field Practices from UNICEF’s Experience”, Refuge, 20(2), 34–44. S. F. Martin (2004) Refugee Women, 2nd edn. (New York: Lexington Books). J. Miller (January 2007) “Uganda’s IDP Policy,” Forced Migration Review, 27: 78. OCHA (2009) “Internally Displaced People: Exiled in their Homeland”, http://ochaonline.un.org/News/InFocus/InternallyDisplacedPeopleIDPs/tabid/ 5132/language/en-US/Default.aspx. Accessed March 12, 2009. OCHA (2007) “Action Sheet 6: Mines and Explosive Remnants of War”, Handbook for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons, http://ochaonline.un.org UN (2007) “Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Uganda”, S/2007/260, May 7. UN (2008) “Additional report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Uganda”, S/2008/409, June 23. UN Department of Public Information (2007) “Press Conference by Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict”, March 16. Cited in: IDMC (April 2008) Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2007.



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UN General Assembly (1951) “Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees”, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 189, July 28. Available at: www.unhcr.org. Accessed March 10, 2009. UNHCR (1995) “Sexual Violence Against Refugees: Guidelines on Prevention and Response”. Available at: www.unhcr.org. Accessed March 10, 2009. UNHCR (1998) “Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement”, E/CN.4/ 1998/53/Add.2, July 22. Available at: www.brookings.edu/idp. Accessed March 10, 2009. UNHCR (June 2003) “Operations Management System”, UNHCR Manual, 4(1.4). UNHCR (2005a) “Refugee and Returnee Children in Southern Africa: Perceptions and Experiences of Violence” (Pretoria: UNHCR). UNHCR (May 2006) “The Tool for Participatory Assessments with Refugees” (Geneva: UNHCR). UNHCR (November 2008) “Global Appeal Update 2009”.Available at http:// www.unhcr.org/ga09/. Accessed February 24, 2009. UN Mine Action Service (2004) A Handbook for: Mine Action Programming (New York: UNMAS). Available at: http://www.mineaction.org/. Accessed March 12, 2009. Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict (WCAC) and Partners (2009) “Checklist to Identify the Special Needs and Vulnerabilities of Displaced Children” (New York). Available at www.internal-displacement.org. Accessed February 24, 2009. Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children (WCRWC) (July 2006) “Right to Education during Displacement: A Resource for Organizations Working with Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons” (New York: WCRWC). Available at www.womensrefugeecommission.org. Accessed March 10, 2009. WCRWC (December 2007) Your Right to Education: A Handbook for Refugees and Displaced Communities. (New York: WCRWC). Available at www.womens refugeecommission.org. Accessed March 10, 2009. WHO (1996) “Mental Health of Refugees”. Available at: http://www.who.int. Accessed March 10, 2009. WHO (2001) “Declaration of Cooperation in Mental Health of Refugees, Displaced and Other Populations Affected by Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations,” endorsed at the International Consultation on Mental Health of Refugees and Displaced Populations in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations, October 23–25, 2000 (Geneva). Available at: http://www.who.int. Accessed March 10, 2009. Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children (February 2004) “Global Survey on Education in Emergencies”. (New York: WCRWC). Available at www.womensrefugeecommission.org. Accessed March 10, 2009. Women’s Refugee Commission (2008) “Untapped Potential: Displaced Youth”. Available at: www.womenscommission.org. Accessed March 10, 2009.



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Without Face or Future: Stateless Infants, Children, and Youth Maureen Lynch

Introduction Solutions for some of the world’s most persistent human rights problems are finally in reach. Globalization, along with the development of vast social networks, increasingly visible civil society organizations, and innovative technology, now make it necessary and possible for the world community to advance meaningful change where it was not possible before. At the same time, the challenges may have never been greater. Statelessness, or the situation in which a person lacks a legal tie to any government, affects millions of people around the world. It reflects the continued failure by nation-states to incorporate basic principles of both international and domestic law and cuts across many other issues including democratic governance, migration and displacement, climate change, culture and identity, rule of law, discrimination, population growth, trafficking, gender equality, and youth empowerment. Effective strategies to end the injustice of statelessness must not only involve fundamental changes in the laws and norms that allow these human rights violations to continue but must be partnered with focused, ceaseless, and well-timed advocacy. Countries such as Bangladesh, Mauritania, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have made significant strides in reducing statelessness. The United Nations (UN) response has improved. Nongovernmental agencies, legal experts, and affected individuals are joining forces. Media attention has increased. But progress is limited and slow. Bolder and more creative efforts to uphold nationality rights for all—a foundation of identity, dignity, justice, peace, and security— must be identified and relentlessly pursued. When paired with global 117



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developments, the cavernous gap at the crossroads of rights and reality offers real opportunities for solving statelessness.

All people, adults and children alike, have the right to a nationality (United Nations General Assembly, 1948). Nationality1 is an essential component of contemporary life. However, stateless infants, children, and youth face undue hardship at an early age and are at a comparative disadvantage when they become older. Not only are they deprived of their citizenship and its concomitant rights, but without a legal identity they are not able to take the first steps to ensure future democratic rights: the right to vote and stand for election. Furthermore, the effects of missing education and poor access to health care are evident throughout the lifespan. Families are needlessly separated, sometimes indefinitely. In short, legal limbo takes an unknown toll on a child’s development and future potential. Arbitrary deprivation of nationality or statelessness affects the lives of more than 12 million people around the world (Lynch, 2005; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2007a). Perhaps those who suffer most are stateless infants, children, and youth who by no fault of their own inherit a trying reality and at best an uncertain future. They are born, go through life, and die as practically invisible people. While there are numerous articles and books referencing the experiences of young refugees, few studies have explored the specific problem of de facto or de jure statelessness among infants, children, or youth. Youth Advocate Program International’s 2002 report broadly identified the common challenges faced by youngsters without a nationality; a 2008 Human Rights Watch Report highlighted the situation of North Koreans in China; the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on Nationality has undertaken feasibility studies on the topic as it relates to the European Convention on Nationality; there are numerous documents about birth registration, violence, or trafficking which briefly mark the topic; media reports call attention to country-specific cases; and numbers of doctoral dissertations have focused on some aspect of this complex and sensitive human rights issue. In October 2008, Refugees International released Futures Denied: Statelessness among Infants, Children, and Youth. What is known is that arbitrary deprivation of nationality or statelessness can occur as the result of deliberate state policy not to confer nationality on children born to people of certain ethnicity, race, or



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religion. It can stem from unwillingness to recognize children of parents displaced by armed conflict or affected by a realignment of borders. Children can become stateless due to discriminatory laws relating to birth registration, especially when nationality is based solely on descent (often only that of the father), and even a lack of financial ability to document their birth (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1994). A number of legal instruments have been created to regulate the status and treatment of stateless persons. The primary reference points are the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Intended as a Protocol to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1954 Convention was adopted to cover stateless persons who are not refugees and are not already covered by the 1951 Convention. It is the main international instrument to regulate the legal status and treatment of stateless persons. The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defines a stateless individual as a person “who is not considered by any State under the operation of its law”; that individual may also be a refugee (United Nations General Assembly, 1954). Most stateless people have been born and raised in their country of current residency but lack records or a formal recognition of their existence in that country. The 1961 document is the only international instrument which outlines specific ways to identify a person’s nationality where statelessness would otherwise result. At present only 62 states are party to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and 34 are party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. A number of other international instruments also refer to nationality: the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, and the 1930 Hague Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws. Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) asserts that all children should be provided protection against statelessness stating that (1) The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality, and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents; and that (2) State Parties shall ensure



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the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national laws and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless. Article 8 of the CRC says (1) State Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name, and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference, and (2) Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, State Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to reestablishing speedily his or her identity. The 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states in Article 24: “Every Child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have a name” and “Every child has the right to acquire a nationality.” The gap between protections suggested in international law and the reality of millions of children around the world is self-evident but reported and unfixed. The current chapter identifies common themes surrounding the causes and consequences of statelessness among infants, children, and youth. The chapter concludes with practical recommendations aimed at strengthening or changing policies to protect every person’s right to nationality, regardless of age. This chapter, its findings, and policy recommendations are based on Refugees International field research conducted between November 2004 and November 2007 that broadly focused on stateless groups in Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Estonia, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Senegal, Syria, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. Refugees International is an independent, nonprofit humanitarian advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, that generates lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people around the world and works to end the conditions that create displacement—including statelessness. Refugees International gathers information for its reports by seeking out and interviewing affected persons and also by talking to representatives of governmental and intergovernmental bodies, the relevant UN agencies, international organizations, and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Field missions referenced here were conducted by two-person teams, including the author of this chapter and a second Refugees International staff member, a representative of another NGO, or a consultant with specific language capabilities. Since the issue of statelessness is very complex and politically sensitive, and children do not always know their legal status, the vast majority of interviews took place with adults/parents.



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To understand statelessness, it is necessary to understand the main ways of becoming a citizen: by blood, by birth, or by naturalization. Through citizenship by blood (jus sanguinis) a newborn child can obtain nationality through one or both parents. This means one can obtain a nationality regardless of one’s country of birth. Countries that practice this system include Italy, South Korea, and Japan. Alternately, through citizenship by birthplace (jus soli), a newborn child obtains nationality from the country of birth, regardless of parental citizenship. Some countries allow a combination of the two means of acquiring citizenship but give emphasis to one over the other. One can also obtain citizenship through naturalization, a process by which a person can change one nationality to another. Requirements to do so may include years of residency in that country, passing a test or tests, and marrying a spouse who is a citizen in that country. Sometimes the process through which a child obtains a nationality malfunctions. For example, like adults, children can become stateless when a government collapses. Newly formed nations may write laws excluding minorities from citizenship. During political crisis, families who leave their homes and possessions expecting to return may find themselves stranded and flee their country without identification or proof of citizenship (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2007). The upheaval and confusion of mass population movement can overwhelm authorities in the original country as well as in the host country. State mechanisms linked to registration, such as birth certificates, census, and surveys, may be destroyed or suspended. Individuals may become officially lost, not accounted for by any government (Aird et al., 2002). Lack of birth registration is another important cause of statelessness. While the global problem of undocumented children points to a host of issues, the degree of overlap between the lack of birth registration and statelessness is not presently known. The majority of unregistered children are not stateless, but civil registration or lack of it may be a means to skew or hide population sizes of particular groups or to indirectly refuse citizenship to unpopular members. Children may not be registered because parents fear the attention that might be directed toward their own lack of citizenship status. A child can become stateless if his or her birth record is lost or destroyed and there is no other formal manner in which to link them with a particular country. Many government agencies do not have good facilities or storage systems for the safekeeping of these documents



How children become stateless


(United Nations Children’s Fund, 1998b). Officials may refuse to create birth certificates for youth who belong to unpopular ethnic minorities or their birth records are lost or destroyed by the state (Aird et al., 2002). When refugee mothers give birth to children outside their home countries, it can be difficult for a child to acquire their parents’ nationality. In theory, refugee children in a country of asylum must be considered as having, or able to acquire, including through naturalization, effective nationality (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1994); but in practice, the host country may not offer citizenship to them (United Nations Children’s Fund, 1998b). One interviewee, a Uighur mother who fled to Kyrgyzstan seeking asylum, gave birth shortly after her arrival from China. A sympathetic Uighur man who lived in the family’s new community gave the child his last name to disguise her identity and provide the young child a semblance of legitimacy. At age 16 the girl will apply for citizenship under her assumed name, but she would rather share her mother’s name now and stop hiding. Unfortunately, there is no possibility for her to do so. In the situation where a family has migrated and the parents come from a jus sanguinis country, their children will have the right to the citizenship of their parents’ country of origin. However, in practice it may be difficult for the children to access this nationality, and they may become de facto stateless. It has been suggested that the vulnerability of irregular migrants’ children to a lack of birth registration could herald the arrival of a whole generation of stateless children (Van Waas, 2007). Where citizenship is determined exclusively by the father’s nationality, single women or those living apart from their husbands face numerous barriers to register children. This inability to register children can lead to a number of problems. Women also face difficulties in passing citizenship to their children where the father is stateless, even when the child is born in the mother’s country of citizenship. If a woman is unable to extend citizenship to her noncitizen spouse, statelessness may be imposed on her in return and, then, on their children. Nationality of a child born to parents from different countries is of particular concern when laws treat men and women differently. A woman’s right to pass on her nationality to her children is protected by Article 9 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which states that women shall be granted “equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children.” Since CEDAW came into force in 1981, at least 20 countries have changed their citizenship laws to give women the right to pass



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on their nationality to their children (United Nations General Assembly, 1979). Legitimacy may also be a factor in determining a child’s nationality. The CRC Committee has suggested that a child born out of wedlock should acquire the mother’s nationality if not legally recognized by the father, noting that otherwise a child may become stateless (Detrick, 1992). If a father abandons a child before nationality is confirmed on a birth certificate, if he refuses to admit paternity or divorces the mother, or if a mother cannot prove the father’s nationality, a child can become stateless (Afrol News, 2000). These challenges are readily apparent where the citizenship rights of illegitimate children born to UN troops and a female national are unclear (Aird et al., 2002; Paye-Layleh, 2005).

The impact of statelessness on infants, children, and youth Statelessness, whether de jure (by right, according to law) or de facto (in fact, in reality, in actual existence, as a matter of fact), has innumerable and immeasurable consequences for children. Infants may bear the brunt of lack of prenatal care for their mother and may not receive appropriate medical care including immunizations. Young children may have irregular, if any, access to primary education. Older children are almost universally restricted from accessing secondary education. Being stateless may mean being denied one’s inheritance, facing forced or early marriage, harassment, sexual and physical violence, and the risk of being trafficked. Children may experience discrimination or social exclusion because of their noncitizen status. They are not able to travel freely. Unable to prove their true age, a stateless child may be susceptible to exploitation. A number of the most common vulnerabilities faced by stateless children are examined below. Challenges acquiring documentation and a legal identity Perhaps the most obvious and fundamental issue is procurement of an identity and documented proof of such. Birth registration is the official record of a child’s birth by the administration of the state (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2002) and a government’s first acknowledgment of a child’s existence (Dow, 1998). Registration of a child at the time of birth also establishes a child’s legal identity. It is a means to citizenship and participation in society and the foundation for many other human rights integral to a child’s development and well-being. UNICEF’s fact sheet on birth registration identifies these rights and needs, including providing access to health care and school enrollment;



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enforcing laws relating to minimum age for employment; countering early marriage; ensuring that children in conflict with the law are given special protection; ensuring protection from underage military service as well as harassment by law enforcement; securing the child’s right to a nationality; protecting trafficked children; and obtaining a passport, opening a bank account, voting, or finding employment. Birth registration is a crucial first step in building a culture of protection (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2007), but it is often lacking. The government of Thailand, for example, acceded to the CRC in 1992 but has reservations regarding Articles 7 and 22 concerning birth registering and granting citizenship to refugee children, who are viewed first and foremost as illegal aliens. Burmese displaced children born on Thai soil are not granted Thai citizenship. Likewise, the Burmese Government disavows its responsibility and refuses to give citizenship to children of Burmese parents born in Thailand. Neither recognized by the Burmese Government nor wanted by the Thai Government, many of these children have become stateless. In Kuwait, stateless people are denied the right to register officially a birth, marriage, or death (Lynch and Barbieri, 2007). Bidoon, the Arabic word meaning “without” and short for bidoon jinsiya (without citizenship), are longtime residents of Kuwait who lack a nationality and are classified as stateless, and they number between 90,000 and 130,000.2 Even today health care offered free of charge to citizens is withheld from them and bidoon children are barred from free education in public schools. One bidoon father reported, “Someone who has connection in the Ministry of Interior asked me to pay him KD 1,000 (approximately USD$ 3,772) per child to issue a birth certificate. That means I would have to pay KD 3,000 for my three children (approximately USD$ 11,000).” Another bidoon parent told Refugees International that he was able to obtain a birth certificate for his first born child in 1997. However, when the father produced the birth announcement for his second child, the Ministry of Health refused to issue a paper document. As a result, two children in the same family have different statuses. Without a birth certificate, his child is not eligible for public education. The same father’s school-age children will be able to attend school only as long as he can afford to pay private school tuition. Higher education is almost certainly out of the question, with an annual cost of KD 5000 (USD 18,220). The plight of stateless refugees in Senegal began between 1989 and 1990 when Mauritanian leaders and many of the majority of the nation’s lighter-skinned population of Arab descent began a campaign



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to “purify” the nation. They expelled tens of thousands of Mauritanians of sub-Saharan descent from their homes, claiming that none of them were truly Mauritanians because of their skin color. Some 75,000– 100,000 individuals of sub-Saharan descent left Mauritania bound for Senegal and Mali, and 15,000 nomadic Mauritanians who were in Senegal during this period were not allowed to return to Mauritania (Lynch and Calabia, 2007a). Today, Mauritanian refugee parents in Senegal remain divided on whether to register their children. In theory, Mauritanian children born in Senegal could become citizens, but some refugees are unwilling to register their children as they would rather wait to return to Mauritania and regain recognition of their citizenship there. One father told Refugees International, “I was expelled from Mauritania because I was born in a Dakar (Senegal) hospital. If I get my son a Senegalese birth certificate, they could expel him.” Others who tried to register their children have been told to return to the office repeatedly or asked for fees beyond their means. Undocumented migrants in Malaysia are targets for arrest and deportation, which, in some cases when parents are removed, has left children alone on the street. To obtain a birth certificate in Malaysia, it is necessary to produce a valid passport for each parent and a certificate of marriage, documents which many migrants do not possess. In addition, those who work in rural areas may not be able to travel to the national registration authority to apply for the birth certificate. The absence of a birth certificate does not mean that a child is stateless. However, when a child does not have a birth certificate and has no other way of tracing her family’s country of origin to apply for a passport, the child may indeed be stateless or at risk of statelessness (Olsen, 2007). In addition, if a child’s parents have been deported and the individual has no other family ties in Malaysia, it may be difficult for them to trace their heritage back to their parents’ country of origin in order to apply for a passport. If no government recognizes these undocumented children as nationals, the children are vulnerable to statelessness. In Syria, Kurdish male nationals who marry women who are Ajanib are able to register their marriages and pass their status to their children. All other marriages, such as those between Ajanib and Maktoumeen (unregistered) or a marriage between a stateless man and a woman who is a Syrian national, cannot be registered officially, even if a court decree is obtained recognizing the marriage. Married couples in such families are listed on their identity cards as “single,” which poses problems for the registration of children on family identity cards. When the parents do not have a marriage certificate it is difficult to obtain birth certificates



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for children. Today many Kurdish families who have Syrian nationality refuse to allow their children to marry Ajanib or Maktoumeen because it perpetuates and magnifies statelessness.

Statelessness can lead to poor physical home environments and to family separation. The impact of these factors on the development of children and youth has not been systematically evaluated. For example, in Bangladesh settlements where the stateless Urdu-speaking minority (also known as Biharis and Stranded Pakistanis) are severely overcrowded. Individuals who do not feel secure living outside the camps or who can not afford to move out of the once protective communities continue to struggle with refugee-like living conditions. Sometimes a dozen or more family members live together in a single room no larger than 8 by 10 feet. Lack of water and cohabitation with animals, combined with poor drainage and sanitation systems, contribute to a variety of health problems. In one camp, only two working wells supply water to 650 families. In Mirpur’s Millat Camp, there was only one latrine for 6000 people. Few medical clinics exist, and several camps have no health care at all (Lynch and Cook, 2004a). In the northern part of Malaysia’s Borneo Island, raids are conducted in housing areas of Sabah where migrants live and in the markets and public areas where many of them work. Children whose parents have been arrested and deported and who do not have any other family or guardian in Sabah end up living and working on the street at a very young age. A local community worker told Refugees International, “It’s those who have nobody who are there [in the fish markets].” As noted above, citizenship in Kuwait is passed on to children through fathers, not mothers. Consequently, the children of a Kuwaiti woman and a bidoon husband are also bidoon. However, the child of a divorced Kuwaiti woman or widow can acquire citizenship, so that there is an incentive for couples to divorce to guarantee their children’s future. “Our family was destroyed for the sake of papers,” lamented one young woman, the articulate and outspoken daughter of a Kuwaiti mother and a stateless father who divorced for the sake of their children. This woman’s parents took this painful decision after she and her brother were unable to enroll in college. Stateless children can also be found in the United States. At a briefing on the topic of stateless children before the US Congress in 2007, a representative of Amnesty International related the case of one stateless family—a man, his pregnant wife, and four of their five children who



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were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and placed in detention centers hundreds of miles away from each other (Reynolds, 2008). The US Board of Immigration Appeals denied their asylum claims and had ordered their removal. The five-year-old daughter was placed in a cell with her mother, but the 8- and 14-year-old sisters were detained together elsewhere. The 15-year-old son was held by himself. The family’s three-year-old daughter was not taken in the raid because she was born in the United States and is a citizen. Firstly, according to UNHCR’s Guidelines on Refugee Children, asylum-seeking minors should not be detained. Secondly, if children are detained, arrangements must be made for living quarters that are suitable for children and their families (United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, 1994). Abandonment is another issue faced by some stateless youth. Children fathered by US soldiers who had been sent to serve in Korea were shunned in that society, where interracial relationships are traditionally not accepted (Aird et al., 2002). Already abandoned by their fathers who had returned to the United States, most of these children were later abandoned by their mothers because of social pressure or the lack of resources to care for them. Most of the children lacked means to prove paternity. When the plight of these children reached the attention of the international community, there was pressure in the US and Korean Government for the US Government to recognize these children as US citizens. Resulting US legislation regarding the status of Amerasian children was less than adequate, and most of the affected children lacked the means to prove their paternity. After 50 years, only a small number of those Amerasian children have been granted US citizenship (Aird et al., 2002). Elusive education Through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26) and the CRC (Article 28), the international community has recognized primary education as a right because of its important and positive impact on people’s lives and on society. One of UNESCO’s goals is to see that all children, girls and boys, finish primary education. Primary schooling must be free of charge and compulsory for every child by 2015. UNESCO also highlights other important roles of education: primary education provides individuals with tools to understand the world and participate in society; girls enrolled in educational programs marry later; primary education aids the fight against child labor and exploitation, and against HIV/AIDS; is vital for economic development, giving individuals the chance to earn more and be more productive; lays a foundation for



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using new technology; and education enables people to have voice in politics and society. Education, a primary gateway to social advancement and opportunity, may be limited or unavailable to stateless children. Some stateless families are told their children can attend school only if space is available after all other citizens’ children have registered; governments feel that offering stateless children an education is too costly; or in other cases, parents are forced to pay high tuition fees so children can attend the public school (Khaleej Times, 2006). For stateless Bihari children in Bangladesh, the right to education has become a luxury. Some children do not attend school at all. In other cases, teachers go unpaid, students study in shifts, and requests to the Minister of Education for new books are turned down. Lack of education, combined with an already impoverished economy, provides little opportunity for employment. In a family of six daughters, five girls worked so one sister could attend college. A young man explained, “My brother struggled a lot to send me and my sisters to school. To get higher education, I had to pretend to be Bengali.” In Malaysia, Refugees International interviewed children of migrants of Filipino and Indonesian descent. Those with orang asing [foreigner] on their birth certificates, as well as those who do not possess a birth certificate, cannot go to government schools. Private school is an option but the cost is prohibitive. Church and community organizations offer private education at a reduced cost. One NGO has worked to educate almost 5000 undocumented children in eastern Sabah, including those on the oil palm plantations, with the support of the local authorities. The Thai Ministry of Education is supposed to issue the Regulation on Evidence of a Child’s Birth for School Admission in honor of Article 29 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, but not all of the children receive this document needed to attend Thai schools. One stateless child stated, “I don’t want to pick chilies and onions in the plantation. I want to go to school. I want to wear a school uniform proudly and learn the materials in a proper classroom like them [referring to the Thai students].” In Syria, denationalized Kurds number approximately 300,000. They are in a unique situation in relation to the larger Kurdish population (Lynch and Ali, 2006). The Syrian Government recognizes the right of Kurdish children to primary education, but not to primary education in their native language. Not only must the children go through considerable administrative processes and delays in registering for primary education, but they must additionally obtain permission from



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state security to attend secondary school. Enrolling in university proves to be an even more arduous task. Some parents even report listing their children under the names of relatives who have nationality in order to facilitate their access to education. No stateless Kurds, even those at the top of their class, can access governmental scholarships for postgraduate education abroad, and unlike Syrian nationals, they cannot receive government loans or stipends for their undergraduate university education. Stateless Kurds with a disability cannot obtain state-funded special education. Health care hurdles For stateless children, health care may be less readily available or more costly than for a citizen child (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2005). Children without birth certificates cannot be legally vaccinated in at least 20 countries and over 30 countries require documentation to be treated at a health care facility (Dow, 1998). Infants are especially vulnerable to diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, and malaria. Little consideration is made to the public health implications these limitations have. Government-assistance programs offering needed food or medical attention to nationals, particularly impoverished ones, frequently refuse to serve stateless persons or their family members. This includes services intended to assist critical epidemics such as HIV/AIDS. This issue is of particular importance to pregnant women at high risks of infecting the baby at the time of birth (AVERT). The situation for stateless children of Colombian asylum seekers in Panama emphasizes the difficulties faced by parents and sick children. One NGO worker recounted, I found myself in a small shack surrounded by 20–30 individuals seeking refugee status after having been forced off their communally owned lands by FARC guerillas in Colombia. These adults have temporary humanitarian protective status. One man told me about his mysteriously ailing four-year-old. The little boy would be flying on the same small propeller plane as me out of the village the next day, but he would be flying alone, the father told me, as the father’s temporary status effectively imprisons him within the parameters of the Darien jungle. “I can not accompany him. I won’t be there to hold his hand.” The father explained he had finally received permission for his son’s emergency travel after five fruitless medical evacuation petitions over a three-month period, and only after the intervention



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of the three nuns and efforts of a circulating UNHCR officer. Was I wrong to think the boy was due the same treatment as any person born in Panama? “No,” the father told me, “he should be a Panamanian, but he is my son and with no registration he is treated just like any Colombian.” This father went on to tell me of the pain of living with temporary status in Panama, saying, “We who are parents feel impotent in the face of [our children’s] sickness. What kind of father does that make me?” (Aber, 2008) Bidoon in the United Arab Emirates face restricted movement both within the country and outside. One bidoon was left with a permanent disability as the result of inability to access specialized medical care outside the country. Forced movement and hampered travel Without passports or even proper identification documents, stateless children and youth may face restrictions on movement, expulsion from a country, and trafficking. Some resort to the use of smugglers to remove themselves from difficult situations. For years, Human Rights Watch has documented the situation of ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan (Frelick, 2008). Under the 1985 Citizenship Act, only children whose parents are both citizens of Bhutan are citizens by birth. Since only 2.5 percent of the refugees in one camp have been recognized as citizens, few children will have two Bhutanese citizen parents. Anyone able to return to Bhutan in the future would be required to qualify under the 1985 Citizenship Act. This means that it is likely that most Bhutanese children living in the Nepalese refugee camp, should they ever be allowed to repatriate, would most likely remain stateless. Until recently children born to a Nepalese mother and a Bhutanese father were not entitled to Nepalese citizenship. Now, although they are not accorded the automatic citizenship that applies to children of Nepalese fathers and Bhutanese mothers, they can be eligible for Nepalese citizenship if they have permanent residence in Nepal, and they have not acquired citizenship of a foreign country on the basis of the father’s citizenship. In Côte d’Ivoire, it is estimated that more than a quarter, and possibly more than a third, of the country’s 18 million inhabitants do not have effective nationality, mainly among the large numbers of migrants from neighboring states who responded to the invitation of the first president with the promise of land to those who cultivated it (Lynch and Calabia,



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2007a). In an Abidjan slum, two women explained how their family of seven fled their home leaving their agricultural and small businesses behind. The family lived in the bush for two years. An uncle had opened his door to the women and their children, but when costs became prohibitive, he asked them to leave. When Refugees International visited, a 16-year-old boy stood quietly and partially hidden in the shadows. He only stepped forward to help when the baby or one of the younger children needed attention. One sister said, “We don’t have papers for him. The government will not issue a paper to a child not born in this place. He hasn’t been to school, so we don’t know what we can do. Without a birth certificate he cannot travel alone or he would have to pay a lot of money as bribes. We cannot return to Man [their city of origin].” Stateless youth who wish to travel outside their country of residence or internationally cannot do so and are essentially trapped in a confined area or region. Passports essential for international travel are not issued to them. This means one cannot visit family or friends located in other countries. It means no access to education abroad, much less travel for business or pleasure. Impaired travel also inhibits access to specialized medical services. Vulnerability to exploitation and trafficking Every child is entitled to state protection against exploitation and abuse. Unregistered and stateless children, however, have no guaranteed protection. For young people without legal documents, proving one’s age is difficult. Without these records, children can become unprotected by child labor laws as they can not prove minor status (United Nations Children’s Fund, 1998a). The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for State Parties to prevent the “abduction of, the sale of, and trafficking of” children (United Nations, 1989). The situation is especially problematic when law enforcement cannot condemn traffickers because there are no documents to prove a child’s age. Having few options to ensure basic survival and experiencing depressed development, some stateless Kurd families and individuals seek opportunities abroad. One estimate offered to Refugees International was that up to 50,000 Kurds have now left Syria, the majority of who are stateless. While no official statistics are available, it is said that most families have had at least one member smuggled to another country. Foreign officials confirm that individuals making asylum requests say they use traffickers. One young Ajnabi student described a family he knows with five children who were smuggled to Egypt and were left



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stranded there for 6 months until they agreed to pay the smugglers SYP 1 million (USD 20,000) to go to Europe. They were afraid to return to Syria because they feared arrest and prolonged detention. A 13-year-old stateless girl who escaped from her Thai owner, recounted, “I was sold for less than 800 baht (US $20) to work as a housemaid. I have to get up before 5 a.m. to prepare the shop. My owner makes me eat 5–10 chilies to wake up. I don’t sleep until I cleaned everything (at 11 p.m. or midnight). I ran away because they were going to sell me to work in sex trade.” Matters of international protection, justice, and inheritance As in the case of adults, children may be caught in a situation where they are unable to stay in the country where they have been detained but are also unable to go home. In Sweden, it is reported that approximately 70 percent of asylum seekers entering the country do not possess any identity document, complicating the investigation of individual cases and the provision of appropriate protection, especially in the case of children (Larsson Bellander, 2003). Amnesty International reports that when stateless children seeking asylum enter the United States, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is authorized to place them outside detention facilities whenever possible (Reynolds, 2008). If an order of removal is issued against a stateless child, she or he is subject to mandatory detention while immigration officials try to locate a country willing to accept the individual. Often, however, foreign states refuse to issue stateless children travel documents. Without such documents stateless children may remain incarcerated for 6 months or more without adequate psychological, medical, or educational services. If a stateless young person lands in legal trouble and is lacking proof of minor status, he or she could be prosecuted as an adult. As previously noted, without proper documents to prove the age or resident status of victims, traffickers cannot be taken to court because law enforcers are not able to prove whether the child is legal or not. In such a process or under other circumstances, a young person may not have the opportunity for a fair trial or even a trial at all when arrested or charged for a criminal act. Moreover, stateless youth are not treated equally with other juveniles, and stateless children cannot be safely returned home because there is not proof of his or her nationality and even existence. Though often overlooked, issues of property and inheritance are important to stateless youth and their families. In situations where residency status is absent or questionable, adults are not able to pass on



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their inheritance and land rights to their children. Under most national laws, the children cannot inherit anything from their parents unless they have proper documentation that proves they are related. Without any legal documents, that is not possible for stateless children. Hence one’s inheritance may be taken away by the government, neighbors, or sometimes relatives. Social exclusion and the psychological impact of statelessness It has been said that “the ties and influences that result from belonging to a particular territory are critical, even for very young children. The place of residence has pervasive impacts and life-long consequences: it affects children’s life expectancy, their physical and psychological development, their material prospects, and their general standard of living . . . Yet children, particularly young children, are often considered parcels that are easily moveable across borders with their parents without particular cost to them” (Bhabha, 2003). When the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvia gained independence from Russia in the early 1990s, they enacted citizenship laws designed to bar many Russians from becoming citizens. As a result, out of a population of 2.6 million, over 700,000 people in Latvia were left stateless. In Estonia about 500,000 individuals or a third of the 1.5 million people became noncitizens (Aird et al., 2002). The numbers have dropped, but the conditions for the remaining stateless persons in Estonia are difficult. In the predominantly ethnic Russian northeastern part of the country, mines, industrial complexes, and Soviet military bases have either closed or relocated. The Russian-speaking minority is overrepresented in orphanages (Lynch and Cook, 2004b). In Kuwait, the older generation of bidoon, who currently or previously served in the military and police force, are reluctant to protest their plight too strenuously. Their children, however, are more impatient. Feelings of distress, frustration, resentment, disappointment, and anger among bidoon youth are palpable. Unable to afford the cost of tuition, they are prevented from accessing higher education. Barred from employment in the public sector, they have to accept work that is poorly paid and intermittent. Many are reluctant to marry or even plan for marriage because they can not support a family and fear that their children would face the same hardships. Targeted discrimination A common problem faced by stateless children is discrimination. In the Dominican Republic, exploitative migrant labor agreements and years of unregulated migration have created a permanent underclass



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of people of Haitian descent (Lynch, 2007). In theory, the Dominican Constitution grants citizenship to everyone born on its territory, but the Dominican Supreme Court has ruled that Dominican-born Haitians are not eligible for citizenship because they are “in transit,” despite the fact that many of them, their parents, and grandparents have lived and worked in the country for decades. In October 2005, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a landmark judgment, Yean and Bosico vs. Dominican Republic, which found that the Dominican Republic had denied citizenship on the basis of race, thereby rendering children of Haitian descent effectively stateless. One Dominican-Haitian, Sonia Pierre, who has received the 2006 R. F. Kennedy Human Rights award for her work on behalf of stateless children in the Dominican Republic, has compellingly stated, “Many times these children have a hate for their origins. One’s identity, roots, and values are what make you a human being. This is not the internal problem of one state. We live in a global world, so we are talking about world citizens.” But when a Dominican Government official was asked how births of the children of asylum seekers get registered, it was said that children of asylum seekers are entitled to their parents’ status and that despite fearing persecution in Haiti they should register a birth at the Haitian Embassy. In reality, the situation is different. “Our sons and daughters of refugees are in a state of limbo,” an affected individual concluded.

Responding to statelessness among children No region of the world is free of the problems that lead to statelessness, and it must be recognized that the primary responsibility for ending statelessness rests on governments. Perhaps the best news is that in recent years Bangladesh, Mauritania, Nepal, and the United Arab Emirates have taken major strides toward resolving long-standing issues of statelessness. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has noted that in recent years the Committee on the Convention of the Rights of the Child has “increasingly and more systematically looked into the issue of statelessness.” UNHCR’s 2006 Executive Committee conclusion on statelessness issues includes a call to States “to facilitate birth registration and issuance of birth or other appropriate certificates as a means to providing an identity to children” (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2006). A 2007 UNHCR conclusion on children at risk recommends that States, UNHCR, and other



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relevant agencies and partners “. . . register births and provide children with birth or other appropriate certificates as a means of providing an identity” (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2007b). Over the years, international conventions have attempted to address nationality problems faced by adopted children. The 1930 Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws includes a provision that adoption shall not cause loss of nationality unless the adopted child acquires the nationality of the person(s) by whom the child is adopted (League of Nations, 1930), as do the 1961 Convention on the Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness, the 1967 European Convention on Adoption of Children (European Convention on Adoption of Children, 1967), and the European Convention on Nationality.3 Usual methods of citizenship acquisition can result in nonacquisition by adoptees, particularly those who are subjects of intercountry adoptions. For example, in the United States, foreign-born children adopted by citizens would not acquire citizenship via jus soli, even if brought into the United States by American parents immediately after their birth, but the US Child Citizenship Act of 2000 confers citizenship automatically and retroactively on foreign-born children adopted by US citizens (US Child Citizenship Act, 2000). The Swedish Citizens Act passed in 2000 says a stateless child born in Sweden can become a citizen if the person is under the age of five and permanently resides in Sweden. A stateless child that moves to Sweden can become a citizen if they lived in Sweden for three years and are under 18 (New Swedish Citizenship Act, 2000).

Conclusion and recommendations It has been said that the acquisition or nonacquisition of citizenship has “perhaps the most dramatic consequences for children’s lifelong prospects” (Schacher, 2003), but millions of children currently live without an effective nationality. It is important that every effort be made to close the current gaps. Every child must be allowed to realize their potential and develop as full and productive citizens. All states must respect the fundamental human right of children and youth to have a nationality and demonstrate their willingness to do so becoming party and adhering to international standards. States should include provisions on nondiscrimination on the grounds of sex in national citizenship laws so parents have equal rights to give nationality to their children.



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States can make greater effort to allow noncitizen children greater access to rights and entitlements. When and where possible, stateless children and youth should be included in the processes undertaken to identify concerns and develop policies to protect their rights. Every child should be registered at birth and when doing so, states should identify cases of disputed nationality and should grant citizenship if the child would otherwise be stateless. Children born out of wedlock should be given the same access to nationality at birth as children born to married parents. States should make primary education free and compulsory for all children regardless of their status, including text books and supplies. They should promote the education of girls, as they are the ones more likely to be excluded from school, and provide detained stateless children with education commensurate with age and grade. It is vital and prudent for all governments to provide access to health care and immunizations to all stateless infants, children, and youth. The policy of detaining stateless children should be abolished in the interest of their mental and physical health and well-being. States should enforce laws relating to minimum employment age and assist efforts to prevent child labor and work to protect young people from underage military service or conscription. Effort must also be made to effectively counter forced marriage of young girls before they are legally eligible and to prevent the trafficking of children, with efforts to resolve the situation of trafficked children including through repatriation and family reunion. Children, as well as their parents and educators, should know the location of key documents at all times and seek to maintain their family links as much as possible. They should be educated to be aware of the dangers of trafficking. The United States should make the prevention and reduction of de jure or de facto statelessness an important goal of US foreign policy and human rights efforts. It must seek to identify and implement remedy for stateless persons, including those who reside within territories of the country. The United States should require the Department of Homeland Security to regularly provide data on children in detention by age, gender, length of time, and nationality/statelessness. The UN should strengthen UNHCR as the lead agency in accordance with its mandate on statelessness, including special attention to issues relevant to children, and take steps to utilize all mechanisms of UN Human Rights bodies. The Agency should organize a comprehensive survey to identify stateless populations, including children.



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Notes 1. Harvard Law Professor G. Neuman: “In the international context, the two terms [citizenship and nationality] are usually synonyms, both describing the relationship between an individual and the state [in the international sense] of which he or she is a national; or equivalently, the status of being a national of that state.” Black’s Law Dictionary states: nationality. 1. NATION (1). 2. The relationship between a citizen of a nation and the nation itself, customarily involving allegiance by the citizen and protection by the state; membership in a nation. This term is often used synonymously with citizenship. See CITIZENSHIP. citizenship, n. 1. The status of being a citizen. 2. The quality of a person’s conduct as a member of a community. 2. There are variations of the spelling bidoon, including bedoon and bidoun. 3. See Art. 6(4)(d) (European Convention on Nationality, 1997).

Bibliography S. Aber (2008) Presentation made at a briefing before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights and Children’s Caucus. Afrol News (2008) Available at: http://www.afrol.com/article/15644. Accessed September, 2008. S. Aird, H. Harnett, and P. Shad (2002) Stateless Children: Youth Who Are without Citizenship, Booklet No. 7 (Youth Action Program International). AVERT (2008) Available at: http://www.avert.org/motherchild.htm. Accessed August, 2008. J. Bhabha (2003) “The Citizenship Deficit: On being a Citizen Child”, Development, 46(3), 53–59. S. Detrick (ed.) (1992) The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Guide to the “Travaux Prepatoires”, contributors J. Doek and N. Cantwell (Dordrect/Boston/London: Marinus Nijhoff Publishers). U. Dow (1998) “Birth Registration: The ‘First’ Right”, The Progress of Nations. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/pon98/civil1.htm. Accessed September, 2008. European Convention on Adoption of Children (1967) 24.IV. Art. 11 (Strasbourg). Available at: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/058.htm. Accessed September, 2008. European Convention on Nationality (1997) Art. 6(4)(d). Available at: http:// conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/166.htm. Accessed September, 2008.



Through these measures and others, statelessness among infants, children, and youth can be reduced, even ended. The current juncture is the right time for states and those who can influence them to be pressed into taking action—until they do. Nationality is both a human right and a child’s right.


W. Frelick (2008) Presentation made at a briefing to the U.S. Congressional Human Rights and Children’s Caucus. Khaleej Times (2006) “Stateless Residents: A Social Reality That Requires Attention”, March 22. Available at: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle. asp?xfile=data/theuae/2006/March/theuae_March749.xml§ion=theuae& col= Accessed September 2008. E. Larsson Bellander (2003) Birth Registration and Armed Conflict, Paper Presented at the Expert Consultation on Birth Registration and Armed Conflict (Florence, Italy), July 2–3. League of Nations (1930) “Article 17 in Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Law, League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 179, 89, No. 4137.” April 30. Available at: http://www.unhcr. org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3b00.html. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch (2005) Lives on Hold: The Human Cost of Statelessness (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational. org/content/publication/detail/5051/. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch (2007) Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the United States: Protect Rights, Reduce Statelessness (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/9770/. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch and P. Ali (2006) Buried Alive: Stateless Kurds in Syria (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational. org/content/publication/detail/7829/. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch and P. Barbieri (2007) Kuwait: State of Exclusion (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational. org/content/article/detail/10121/. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch and D. Calabia (2007a) Senegal: Voluntary Repatriation Critical for Protecting Stateless Mauritanians (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/ detail/9840/?mission=9551. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch and D. Calabia (2007b) Côte d’ Ivoire: Address Root Causes of Conflict to Prevent and Reduce Statelessness (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/ detail/9850/. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch and T. Cook (2004a) Stateless Biharis in Bangladesh: A Humanitarian Nightmare (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/4666/. Accessed September 2008. M. Lynch and T. Cook (2004b) Left Behind: Stateless Russians Search for Equality in Estonia (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/4635/. Accessed September 2008. New Swedish Citizenship Act (2000) Available at: http://www.uniset.ca/nold/ se_factsheet.pdf. Accessed September 2008. C. Olsen (2007) Malaysia: Undocumented Children in Sabah Vulnerable to Statelessness (Washington, DC: Refugees International). Available at: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/10044/. Accessed September 2008.



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J. Paye-Layleh (2005) “Liberia’s Peacekeeping Legacy”, BBC News. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4195459.stm. Accessed September 2008. S. Reynolds (2008) Presentation made at a Briefing Before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights and Children’s Caucus and based primarily on Ibrahim v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Case No. 07- ca - 081, Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed February 1, 2007, United States District Court Western District of Texas; and D. Solis and F. Trejo Lawyers Petition for Release of Palestinian Family, Dallas Morning News (February 1, 2007). A. Schacher (2003) Children of a Lesser State: Sustaining Global Inequality Through Citizenship Laws, Jean Monnet Working Paper 2/03. M. Teff (2008) “The Acquisition of Citizenship by the Children of Non-Citizens: Does International Human Rights Law Limit the Sovereignty of States to Decide which Children Acquire their Citizenship by Birth?”, unpublished L.L.M. dissertation (University of Essex Law Department). United Nations (1989) “Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Available at: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm. Accessed September 2008. United Nations Children’s Fund (1998a) Progress of Nations. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/pon98/civil1.htm. Accessed September 2008. United Nations Children’s Fund (1998b) “Civil Rights: Commentary” in The Progress of Nations. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/pon98/civil2.htm. Accessed September 2008. United Nations Children’s Fund (2002) Birth Registration: Right from the Start (Florence, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre). United Nations Children’s Fund (2003) “UNICEF Factsheet: Birth Registration.” Available at: http://www.unicef.org/newsline/2003/03fsbirthregistration.htm. Accessed September 2008. United Nations Children’s Fund (2005) The “Rights” Start to Life: A Statistical Analysis of Birth Registration. Available at http://www.unicef. org/publications/index_25248.html. Accessed September, 2008. United Nations Children’s Fund (2007) Birth Registration and Armed Conflict (Siena, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre). United Nations General Assembly (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 217 A (III), December 10. Available at: http://www.unhcr. org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3712c.html. Accessed September, 2008. United Nations General Assembly (1954) “Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons”, (United Nations) Treaty Series (360) 117, September 28. Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3840.html. Accessed September, 2008. United Nations General Assembly (1979) “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women”, (United Nations) Treaty Series (1249) 13, December 18. Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/ refworld/docid/3ae6b3970.html. Accessed September, 2008. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1994) “Legal Status” in Refugee Children: Guidelines on Protection and Care (Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Guidelines on Protection and Care). Available from http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3470.html. Accessed September, 2008. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2006) Executive Committee Conclusion on Identification, Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and Protection of Stateless Persons, No.106(LVI)-2006, October 6.



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United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2007a) Global Trends. Available at: http://www.un-ngls.org/site/article.php3?id_article=529. Accessed September, 2008. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2007b) Executive Committee Conclusion on Conclusion on Children at Risk, No.107(LVIII)-2007, para.h)ii, October 5. U.S. Child Citizenship Act (2000) Available at: http://travel.state.gov/family/ adoption/info/info_457.html. Accessed September, 2008. L. E. Van Waas (2007) “The Children of Irregular Migrants: A Stateless Generation?” Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, (September) 25(3): 437–458.



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Part III




Unaccompanied Minors at the Crossroads in British Columbia: Migration and Trafficking Robin E. Pike and Cynthia C. L. Field

Introduction Human trafficking is a crime and an abuse of human rights. It often separates a person from her home, community, family, and support network and can involve emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse. Child trafficking is particularly heinous as the child’s vulnerability is exploited for personal gain. Due to the hidden nature of the phenomenon there are few official estimates of the extent of child trafficking, either nationally or internationally. The International Labour Organization estimates that 8.4 million children worldwide are trapped in slavery, debt-bondage, and prostitution, and 1.2 million of these exploited children were taken from their home area. A United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report in 2006 found that 33 percent of trafficking victims were children. The most widely accepted definition of trafficking in persons is that found in Article 3 of the United Nation’s Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (also known as the Palermo Protocol): Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation; Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual 143



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Unaccompanied Minors at the Crossroads

A key element of this definition is that the “consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation . . . is considered irrelevant where any of the means set forth [in the definition] have been used.” Child trafficking is distinct in that “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered ‘trafficking in persons’ even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in the [definition].” The Government of Canada recognizes the Palermo Protocol definition of trafficking and has enacted laws to prevent, suppress, and prosecute trafficking offences (discussed below). Some provincial governments provide additional protection for children who have been trafficked, usually within existing programs for child protection. However, without a clear picture of the scope of child trafficking, it is difficult for the government and other organizations to plan and design policies and programs to prevent child trafficking and protect trafficked persons. This study contributes data collected over 15 years to the existing information available on trafficked children. We analyze and present data from the Migrant Services Program (MSP), a unique program in Canada that was set up to care for unaccompanied minors (UMs) migrating to British Columbia from 1999 onward. We believe this sample of data can be extrapolated to the wider population of UMs in the country, providing greater understanding of the phenomenon on two fronts. First, this stands as the only study that provides an estimate of the level of child trafficking in a Canadian province. Second, it provides information on specific cases of child trafficking and analyzes patterns in the profiles of trafficked children. A key finding of the study is the evidence that almost half (approximately 43 percent) of UMs who arrived in British Columbia between 1991 and 2005 fall under the definition of child trafficking. This striking finding could prove to be of great value in informing current policy toward child trafficking and the treatment of UMs. A second key finding of the study is that while trafficked children during this period were predominantly smuggled into the country by boat from China, other trafficked children entered legally and/or willingly, arriving via other modes of transport and from a variety of countries. This finding challenges the assumption that trafficked children present a single, unified profile, and suggests a need to change current practices



exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. (Article 3)

145

of using labels such as “smuggled” without looking further for evidence of human trafficking. In addition to the quantitative data analysis, this chapter will use interviews with trafficked children to explore the crossroads they encountered. The term “crossroad” is used to indicate a dilemma, or the point where a child has to make a difficult choice, often involving conflicting priorities. It is likely that the children within this study sample represent a fraction of the actual cases of child trafficking in the province; but it is also likely that their experiences share important points of similarity with those of the wider population of trafficked children. Therefore, analyzing this information provides potentially useful insights into this criminal activity, within and beyond the Canadian provincial and national contexts.

The Migrant Services Program In 1999, four dilapidated boats entered Canadian waters off the coast of British Columbia carrying 599 migrants, mostly from China. The governments of Canada and British Columbia brought ashore the migrants who had survived the unsafe and unsanitary conditions of their voyage. However, neither government was fully prepared to host such a large influx of migrants. Individuals from the first boat were housed in the community but eventually fled, abandoning their refugee claims in the process. Subsequent arrivals were detained while all minors were placed in specially established group homes. Many of the minors also disappeared. Of the 599 migrants, 131 were under the age of 19, and most were unaccompanied by any parent or guardian. Under the provincial Family Relations Act, a child under age 19 without a guardian comes under the legal guardianship of the Director of the Child, Family and Community Service Act and the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). In 1999, MCFD responded to this influx of UMs by forming MSP to address the specific needs of this population. When the Migrant Services team assumes a guardianship role, it is responsible for meeting the physical, emotional, and developmental needs of the child or youth. The guardian must act in the child’s best interests with respect to her safety and well-being and in all legal matters. A unique requirement of unaccompanied or separated minors is the need for a designated representative for all refugee determination hearings. MSP assumes this role, essentially filling the place of a parent or guardian for these proceedings.



Robin E. Pike and Cynthia C. L. Field


The Migrant Services Program has assisted more than 400 minors since its inception. Each child has distinct needs, and these needs are often influenced by the characteristics of the child’s journey to the country and the purpose for which he came. A better understanding of the background of unaccompanied or separated children coming into the province is therefore necessary in order to respond adequately to their needs.

Methodology For this study, all MSP files dating back to 1991 were examined with the aim of determining whether the cases showed evidence of trafficking. Only closed files up to August 2005 have been included. File documents included records of citizenship and identity, intake and interview notes, as well as financial, medical, and legal documentation. This analysis includes children 19 and under. The UN Palermo Protocol specifies that a child “shall mean any person under eighteen years of age” (Article 3). However, the law in British Columbia identifies any person less than 19 years of age as a minor and under the Family Relations Act MSP identifies and provides services to migrant children up to 19 years of age. Of the closed files, 381 were reviewed in order to identify and analyze indicators of child trafficking according to the definition in the Palermo Protocol. It is worth noting that not one of these cases was recognized formally as involving trafficking. This lack of recognition can be explained in part by the fact that the majority of the cases occurred prior to the adoption of the Palermo Protocol, while others occurred prior to the enactment of legislation defining human trafficking in Canada, or before the implementation of programs to assist immigration and enforcement authorities to detect trafficking in persons. Within the current system it is likely that cases of trafficking go undetected, due to lack of knowledge or insight into the phenomenon. Indicators of trafficking are difficult to detect as trafficked persons may not be forthcoming with key information. Therefore, both circumstantial and verbal evidence can be used to determine if there is an abuse of a position of vulnerability which may be for the purposes of exploitation. Key indicators used to detect child trafficking in the closed MSP file reports were: • traveling with an unrelated person who poses as a family member • possessing neither personal identification nor travel documents • arriving with contact information for persons unknown to the child



146

147

• holding expectations of a job or education that would be unattainable • traveling in unsafe and hazardous conditions • fearing for the safety of family or self • owing significant amounts of money to a person or group who may have arranged his transportation (debt bondage) We classify cases as “probable trafficked” when the records contain one or more indicators of trafficking, as listed above. We use the phrase “probable trafficking,” owing to the nature of the information available. While it was possible to detect the presence of these indicators, other information that would provide a greater degree of certainty was not always contained in MSP records, either because interviewers did not ask questions specifically regarding exploitation or because the child did not reveal information. When considering the situation of minors in the care of MSP, it is important to keep in mind that these children were separated from their social support networks. Whether or not the minors were trafficked or exploited, it is likely that they felt extremely vulnerable and may have suffered emotional stress. Meeting the emotional needs of separated children can be difficult because children may not be able to understand or discuss their experience. The emotional trauma of leaving the security of family, friends, and financial support as well as familiar language and culture may be overwhelming. Despite the efforts of social workers at MSP, these children may not have felt comfortable or trusting enough to discuss their experiences or intentions with someone whom they saw as an authority figure. It is possible that children may make up stories in order to hide or ignore their experiences, either because of regret or because of fear of revealing participation in illegal activities. It is not impossible, therefore, that the information available in the MSP records may contain some incorrect or fraudulent stories. However, all efforts have been made to ensure that the information provided in this analysis is in accordance with the most factual details available in these records.

Literature review Existing literature reviews on human trafficking were consulted for the purposes of this paper, revealing few relevant articles. Each review concluded, as we have, that there is a lack of articles on child trafficking, and few of those are based on empirical evidence. According to the US-based literature review by Gozdziak and Bump (2009), only one journal article of 218 specifically discusses male victims





of child trafficking, while six discuss girls. Gozdziak and Bump also found reliability to be a problem as empirically based articles are rare: “Quantitative methodologies are noticeably scarce; only 7 articles [of 218] are based on quantitative methodologies” (p. 29). Due to the covert nature of the crime, accurate statistics on the nature, prevalence, and geography of human trafficking are difficult to calculate. Kangaspunta reviewed the findings within the database of the Global Program against Trafficking in Human Beings of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2003, noting that “[reliability] of data remains a problem with most of the data sources based on ‘guesstimates’, which, in many cases, are used for advocacy or fund-raising purposes” (2007: 84). Articles on topics related to migrant minors’ experiences are more relevant for this paper than many articles on human trafficking. For example, several studies in Toronto document that children face a crossroads when they enter Canadian society through legal channels, including cultural, social, and personal dilemmas (Ali et al., 2003; Anisef and Kilbride, 2000). In Strangers at the Gate: The “Boat People’s” First Ten Years in Canada, Beiser evaluates the mental health of newcomer children, concluding that the population is prone to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because they are often “highly distressed and vulnerable” (1999: 82). According to practitioners who worked with children from the 1999 boats, the children exhibited signs of stress and anxiety, emotional and mental health issues (Charlton et al., 2002). Youth on the 1999 boats faced an incredible dilemma, a “crossroads” of whether or not to stay in the care of MCFD or continue to their final destinations. In a retrospective research project, it was noted that the Chinese minors in care had constant incentives to abandon their refugee claims and continue with their traffickers to their intended final destination (Charlton et al., 2002). “Illegal immigrant children can become the most vulnerable group of all because they cannot access services that are considered ‘essential’ in most developed countries” (Ali et al., 2003: 15). Some studies have found that in trying to escape deportation children often go underground, either with the help of their compatriots or on their own, while their cases are being processed (Ali et al., 2003; Anderson, 2001). The case of the minors on the 1999 boats from China is a classic example of this phenomenon. Kumin and Chaikel (2002) noted that many of these UMs disappeared after their applications for refugee status had been turned down. Unaccompanied children have both a low success rate in asylum claims and a low removal and deportation rate. “In other words, they tend to remain in host countries,



148

149

but in a precarious situation, often without access to full welfare benefits or adequate protection” (p. 4). According to Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) documents, most children claimed to be coming to Canada for economic reasons rather than to seek political asylum. This is consistent with the findings that filial piety (obligation to the family) is a strong characteristic of Chinese society and we should not discount this when considering circumstances of the UMs from the 1999 boats: Each [family] member is obliged to contribute to the family capital pool and the family is obliged to provide for each member according to apparent or expressed need. These mutually reciprocal economic obligations and others derived from parental and filial obligation, which bind the family together, are collectively referred to as qinqing. Obligations rooted in qinging must be honored, and they are the most compulsive of the many other mutual-obligate bonds, which shape Chinese society. (Myers, 1997: 130)

Profile of unaccompanied minors In the following section, we provide a profile of the minors who came under the care of the Migrant Services Program between 1991 and 2005 including the year in which they arrived, their countries of origin, the type of transportation used, and whether they entered legally or through unauthorized means. As of August 2005, Migrant Services had provided assistance to 388 UMs who arrived between January 1991 and April 2005. The number of arrivals each year since 1991 has varied greatly, with the highest number of arrivals occurring in 1999 (Table 7.1). Between 1991 and 2005, British Columbia also received a number of children from Asia, most significantly China, as well as from countries in Latin America, Africa, North America, and Oceania (Table 7.2). The two Latin American countries with noticeably higher numbers of UM arrivals were Honduras (32) and Mexico (24). The patterns suggest that Asia is the dominant region of origin, with Latin American arrivals not far behind; Africa may be increasing as a region of origin while Europe seems to be on the decrease. The largest proportion of children (43 percent) arrived in British Columbia through the Vancouver International Airport. Minors on




150 Table 7.1

Unaccompanied minor arrivals by year Number of arrivals

1991–1998

UM arrivals by year

9

160

1999 2000 2001

151 40 88

140

2002 2003 2004

44 25 17

80

4 10

20

∗

2005 Date of arrival unknown Total:

Table 7.2

120 100 60 40 0 1991−8 1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

*As of August 2005 Number of child migrants

388

Unaccompanied minor arrivals by country of origin

Asia

244

Latin America

72

Africa

46

North America

7

China

181

Honduras

32

Somalia

10

United States of America

7

24

CongoBrazzaville Ethiopia

6 6

EUROPE

6

Burundi Zimbabwe DRC∗ Uganda Nigeria Sierra Leone Sudan Swaziland Angola Eritrea

4 4 3 3 2 2

France Hungary Kosovo Yugoslavia

2 2 1 1

UNKNOWN

4

OCEANIA Fiji

2 2

S. Korea

16

Mexico

Iran

11

El Salvador Guatemala Columbia Costa Rica Cuba Ecuador Nicaragua

3 2 1 1 1 1

Peru

1

Sri Lanka India Iraq Malaysia Afghanistan Pakistan

7 6 4 4 3 3

Philippines Bangladesh Hong Kong Jordan Taiwan

3 2 2 1 1

∗

6

2 2 1 1

Democratic Republic of the Congo



Year


151

200 165 149

150

50

44

30

0 Mode of transportation Plane Figure 7.1

Boat

Land

Unknown

Unaccompanied minor arrivals by mode of transportation

9% 13%

78% Unauthorized entry Figure 7.2

Legal entry

Unknown

UM arrivals by type of entry

boats also accounted for a significant proportion of arrivals (38 percent). Seven percent of children came by land, most often through the Douglas Border Crossing in Surrey, British Columbia, from Washington State, USA (see Figure 7.1). Unaccompanied Minors, including those who were assisted by Migrant Services subsequent to their arrival, have entered British Columbia both legally and through unauthorized means. Of the 381 files analyzed, we have information on whether the entry was legal or unauthorized for 343 cases (see Figure 7.2). Unauthorized entry was clearly the dominant phenomenon.

Legal entry Legal entry involves coming to Canada through authorized channels such as obtaining a visitor’s visa or student visa prior to entry, or arriving



100

152


2% 20%

22% 25% Privately sponsored Student visa Figure 7.3

Government sponsored

Visitor's visa

Unknown

Legal entry

under sponsorship. Of the 343 children in the care of Migrant Services whose type of entry is documented, only 51 (13 percent) entered British Columbia through legal means. More than half of this group of legal entrants (29) were brought to Canada under sponsorship. Sixteen of these minors had been sponsored by private organizations or individuals while 13 were brought to British Columbia though the Government Assisted Refugee Program (GAR). The Canadian GAR program assists refugees who fall under the terms of the Geneva Convention and provides care for migrant refugee minors for up to one year after arrival. Some of the privately sponsored children came into government care when problems occurred with the sponsoring relatives or organization. The other half of the legal entrants arrived in possession of a visitor’s visa (11) or a student visa (10) (see Figure 7.3).

Unauthorized means of entry The majority of unaccompanied minors (294, or 77 percent) arrived through unauthorized means. Of these, 190 (65 percent) were smuggled into the country. Many of these minors indicated that they were smuggled into the province rather than attempting to enter through legal channels of entry, under the perception that it would take too long for legal permission to enter. In many of these cases, family members hired smugglers to bring the child to Canada, often to stay with friends or family members willing to take the child into their homes. Most claimed refugee status once arriving in Canada. The United Nations’ Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air states that “smuggling of migrants shall mean the procurement, in order to obtain,



31%


153

35%

Smuggled Figure 7.4

Unauthorized

UM type of unauthorized entry

directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident” (2000: Article 3). The remaining 104 cases (35 percent) are classified simply as “unauthorized entry” because there was no evidence of smuggling and they were generally unwilling to share information with authorities. Many of these individuals were referred to Migrant Services, but refused to accept services, after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) or municipal police arrested them within British Columbia. For example, a group of Central American minors were suspected of having ties to the drug trade in Vancouver, having traveled through the United States before crossing the border undetected and of their own volition. Most were found to have some family connections in Vancouver (see Figure 7.4). The gender profile of UMs under the care of Migrant Services showed an imbalance, with 244 males of the group and 126 females. The dominance of males among the UM population overall may be partially explained by the fact that the 1999 boat arrivals made up 42 percent of the total male migrant minors. (see Figure 7.5). 3%

33%

64%

Males Figure 7.5

Females

Unknown

UM arrivals by gender



65%

154


Using the Palermo definition of child trafficking (with modification to include children up to age 19) and the indicators described in the methodology section, we now present our analysis of the files from Migrant Services on unaccompanied minors who arrived in British Columbia between 1991 and 2005. This analysis reveals that 165 (43 percent) of the migrant children in MSP care can be considered probable trafficked. It is worth noting that some exploitation and deception may have occurred among UMs in more cases than were detected. There is a possibility that other cases of child trafficking would have been identified among the migrant children had more information been available and had the authorities who came into contact with the children been trained to assess indicators of trafficking.

Profile of the trafficked children In the following sections, we provide data on these probable trafficked children to enable comparison with the unaccompanied minors’ cases in this study. When looking at the descriptive statistics, it is important to note the relatively small sample and the way the overall data may be skewed as a result of the large group of trafficked children aboard the boats from China in 1999. In later sections, therefore, we disaggregate further and look at the Chinese children separately from the other trafficked minors. In each year since 1999, minors have been trafficked into British Columbia. There was a spike in 1999, representing the 131 trafficked children aboard the boats from China, and a smaller spike in 2001. In 2000 and 2001, two other boats arrived, each of which contained a further five trafficked children from China (see Figure 7.6). The figures for country of origin of trafficked children arriving in British Columbia are striking: all but seven of the 165 children came from China. Five of the seven came from two other Asian countries— South Korea and Malaysia. The remaining two trafficked children came from Latin America: Honduras and Mexico (see Table 7.3). Given the dominance of the 1999 boat arrivals within the group of trafficked children, it is not surprising that boat is the most common means of transportation for arriving in Canada. This means that trafficked children differ somewhat from the overall group of unaccompanied minors, whose dominant means of transportation into Canada was by plane. The third category of transportation among UM arrivals,



The incidence of child trafficking in British Columbia


155

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1991−98 1999

Figure 7.6

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

Trafficked children by year of arrival

Table 7.3

Trafficked children by country of origin

Country

Number of trafficked children

China South Korea Malaysia Honduras Mexico

158 3 2 1 1

by land, was entirely absent within the group of trafficked children (see Figure 7.7). Of the 165 trafficked children, only two (1 percent) entered the country legally, and 163 (99 percent) were unauthorized entrants. While unauthorized entry was clearly dominant, the two cases of legal-entry trafficking serve to raise awareness that even those who enter the country legally may be trafficked or exploited.

Legal-entry trafficking cases Of the 51 legal unaccompanied minors to British Columbia, there were indications of trafficking for two children (4 percent). One 18-year-old Malaysian girl was found to have been exploited, harboured, and forced into prostitution after police located her in a brothel. She had entered



Number of arrivals by year

140

156


160 140

141

120 100 60 40

23

20

1

0 Boat Figure 7.7

Plane

Unknown

Trafficked children by mode of transportation

Canada on a visitor’s visa in the company of her “boyfriend” and several adult Malaysian women. According to MSP records, the 18-year-old was controlled by several men who took away her identification documents. She was found during a raid on a bawdy house in Vancouver, where police recovered nearly a dozen prostituted migrant women. The police recovered her identification documents and, as per her wishes, she returned to Malaysia soon after the raid. This is one of the clearest cases of child trafficking in British Columbia, though it is important to keep in mind that because she was 18 years of age she would not be considered a child under the international definition of human trafficking. The second case was a young Asian woman who was probably sponsored into the country by a consulting firm but was met at the airport by two persons not related or known to her. She was intercepted by officials and referred to the MSP.

Unauthorized entry trafficking cases Many of the smuggled-and-trafficked minors attempted to enter Canada by using false travel and identity documents and accompanied by unrelated adults. In most cases, the adult claimed to be a relative or family friend of the minor. At Immigration, officials questioned the stories offered and further investigations often revealed the true identity of the persons. In many cases, minors were subsequently deported and their traffickers detained. For example, a six-year-old was returned to her home in Korea after attempting to enter the United States through an airport in Canada. She had been travelling with two older women, one of whom confessed to immigration officials that they were not



80


157

5%

68% Male Figure 7.8

Female

Unknown

Patterns of trafficked children by gender

related and were travelling under false identities. In another case, a 14year-old Korean girl entered the province accompanied by a group of suspicious adults. Immigration suspected she was to be sold into prostitution when the only information she could provide was that she had been sent to live with her “new dad” in San Francisco. A number of minors from China also attempted to enter Canada under similar circumstances. There is great uncertainty over how many similar cases go undetected. Of the 104 unaccompanied minors for whom the details of unauthorized entry are not clear, only one is considered probable trafficked. This was the case of a 14-year-old boy who found accommodation in Vancouver with family members who were known to be involved in the drug trade. He had been picked up several times for drug trafficking in a short period after arriving in Canada. The boy gave no clear indication that he was exploited and maintained that he entered Canada of his own free will. However, records indicate that police and immigration officials suspected that he made his way to Canada to meet with, or in the company of, a drug cartel and that he may have become indebted to the organization (see Figure 7.8). Of the 165 trafficked children, 112 were male and 45 were female, while 8 were unknown. This is very similar to the profile of the group of UMs overall, with a slightly higher percentage of males.

Trafficked children among the 1999 boat arrivals Several factors strongly indicate trafficking in the 1999 cases. All personal identity documents were removed from the minors during their voyage. Large fees owing for their journey, ranging from $30,000 to $60,000, placed these minors in debt bondage. There were numerous



27%


indications that the minors and their family members in China were repeatedly threatened for debt repayment after the minors were intercepted and placed in government care. This coercion pressured the child into pursuing dangerous and exploitative migration before, and likely after, Migrant Services care in order to repay debts and relieve the threats to family back home. There has been controversy surrounding the classification of the 131 Chinese minors on the 1999 boats as trafficked children. Records of refugee hearings indicate that many children testified they were willing participants in their voyage to Canada and, in a minority of cases, came up with the idea themselves. However, even when the children consented to the process, this does not preclude them from identification as a trafficked person according to the internationally accepted definition. Close examination of records reveal that exploitation, and likely trafficking, occurred at every stage of the process. There are several common misconceptions about the 1999 case. One misconception is that individuals could not be considered “trafficked” because they did not qualify as Convention refugees. Section 96 of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) (2001) states that “A Convention refugee is a person who, by reason of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, (a) is outside each of their countries of nationality and is unable or, by reason of that fear, unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of each of those countries; or (b) not having a country of nationality, is outside the country of their former habitual residence and is unable or, by reason of that fear, unwilling to return to that country.” A refugee claimant must attend a hearing by the IRB that will determine whether the person meets the requirements for refugee status. The IRB has issued guidelines on the procedural and evidential issues that arise with child refugee claimants. The guiding principle of the IRB is to give primary consideration to the best interests of the child. The majority of children on the 1999 boats stated that they came to Canada to find employment and to better their education, thus making them economic migrants and not Convention refugees. At the IRB hearings, lawyers argued that children sent to Canada by their parents belonged to a social group that has reason to fear persecution in China. The persecution they faced was retrafficking until they were successfully smuggled into North America and could remit funds to their family and debtors in China. The IRB disagreed, reasoning that children at



158

159

risk of retrafficking are not part of a group with innate or unchangeable characteristics. Further, the IRB concluded that these children were not part of a social group defined by the persecution suffered by its members. In one case, a panel member concluded that because “this claimant does not face more than a mere possibility of persecution should he return to China . . . there is no need to consider counsel’s argument that children subject to trafficking form a particular social group” (IRB Hearing V99-02952). The majority of refugee applications for this group were denied. However, not having Convention status does not preclude these children from consideration as a trafficked person according to international protocol. There is strong evidence of exploitation of these children, including debt bondage, degrading and inhuman traveling conditions, deception, force, and coercion. With this evidence, all of the children who arrived in British Columbia aboard the boats in 1999 can be considered trafficked.

Other trafficked children There were 34 children trafficked into British Columbia between 1991 and 2005 who were not on the 1999 boats. Due to the small number, caution should be exercised in drawing generalizations across this group. It is the diversity of the group as much as the possible emergent patterns that is important to note, because it suggests that trafficked children can present a variety of profiles and that we should be looking for evidence of trafficking across the spectrum of UMs. If we consider the 34 trafficked children, excluding the 1999 arrivals from China, we find that several of the patterns in the overall group of trafficked children shift or are reversed, but one pattern remains steady. We find the year of arrival of trafficked children to have changed. The most significant arrival year becomes 2001, followed by 2000 and 2003. Reversed patterns include mode of transportation and gender distribution. Plane is the dominant mode of transportation into Canada (68 percent), followed by boat (29 percent). The gender pattern is reversed with 59 percent female and 41 percent male. The pattern that remains unchanged is the dominant country of origin of trafficked children. China continues in this position, at 79 percent. Asia also remains the dominant region of origin, at 94 percent. Even if we do not consider the ten Chinese boat arrivals of 2000 and 2001 within the group of post-1999 trafficked children, China still provided 50 percent of the remaining trafficked children.




160


Looking at the patterns among the group of UMs and comparing them with patterns emerging among the group of children identified as trafficked persons, there are some interesting features to note that may help in understanding the phenomenon of migration and child trafficking into British Columbia, some of which may also be of relevance to other parts of the country and beyond. Patterns are similar between the groups in many respects, such as year of arrival and mode of transportation. Unaccompanied minors and trafficked children showed a virtually identical gender distribution with males dominating in both groups. This is surprising because of the expectation that worldwide, trafficking involves more females than males. Without further data, and particularly in-depth qualitative data from within regions of origin, we can only speculate as to the reasons for this gender pattern. One possibility is that societal norms result in a greater likelihood that young males will be sent away or venture out themselves across long distances in search of economic opportunity, and that females who migrate for economic reasons may tend to remain closer to home. Unauthorized entry into Canada was dominant for both UMs and trafficked children, but particularly so for the latter group. This is unsurprising, since these were children present in the MSP because of problems that may be less likely to occur when entry into the country is legal. The fact that stands out is that such high proportions of smuggled children showed indications of trafficking and therefore fall into our classification of probable trafficked children. It is also of note that indications of trafficking were present even among the group of migrants who had entered the country legally. Comparison of the groups shows that the top four countries of origin (China, Republic of Korea, Honduras, and Mexico) of UMs were also those that provided the majority of cases of trafficked children. Asia is the dominant region of origin for both UMs and trafficked children to British Columbia and it is long recognized by the UNODC as a region of origin for human trafficking worldwide. As well, British Columbia and Asia have historic and contemporary social connections that increase the likelihood of migrant movement. China is among the countries of origin listed by the UNODC as “very high” for reported trafficking worldwide. Malaysia and the Republic of Korea are found in the “medium” level on the list, while Honduras is in the “very low”



Comparisons between unaccompanied minors overall and the group of trafficked children

161

level. In our findings, trafficked children to British Columbia came from countries classified as high-, medium-, and low-level source areas at the global level. This observation supports policy recommendations to continue to look for signs of trafficking regardless of the official trafficking classification of the migrant’s origin country. This is particularly important given the challenges of global monitoring and data collection on human trafficking, and the varying methods for assessing levels and risks of trafficking among the main organizations involved in trafficking the phenomenon.

Crossroads It is apparent from these findings that the children in this study faced several significant personal dilemmas, or crossroads, connected with their travel away from home and family. The first and most important of these crossroads was the very difficult decision to migrate away from familiar social support networks. Of 165 probable trafficked children, 109 (66 percent) answered questions related to their decision to migrate and their intentions once arriving in British Columbia. Sixty percent of probable trafficked children in the study sample disclosed that family had arranged their travel to Canada and applied some pressure to take this “opportunity.” Children offered explanations that fall into three categories: that their family had been unaware of the risk, or had believed the destination to be worth the risk, or had been deceived into believing that there was little to no risk. While in MSP care, the minors frequently identified their conflicted emotions and high anxiety while attempting to decide what course to follow. Qinging, or filial piety, plays a strong role in the Chinese child’s decision to migrate. While most stated that they were honoring the family by choice, several felt that they had no choice and that their families had arranged their travel without their knowledge, consent, or input. Sixteen percent of children who discussed the role of their family in their migration indicated that they left China against their own preference and several stated they refused to leave before being forced through physical and psychological means. Three children stated that they initially refused to emigrate and were regularly assaulted for their decision. One child who refused to migrate stated that he was kidnapped in the night and, after waking up inside a container on a cargo ship, was informed that his parents had paid “snakeheads” (smugglers) to have him smuggled into the United States. One female revealed that she had previously traveled to North America under identical circumstances, but had been





intercepted by authorities and returned to China, only to be retrafficked by her family almost immediately. Forty-seven percent of probable trafficked children stated the need to travel to North America for better education and employment opportunities. Four of these children indicated their own economic aspirations while the others indicated that they were either attempting to assist the family financially by sending remittances home or attempting to alleviate the financial burden on their family by emigrating. Children faced a second crossroads when border authorities intercepted and brought the boats to shore—whether to run as soon as the opportunity arose or accept the safety of the MSP. As the literature on unaccompanied minors reveals, UMs in Europe are reported to by and large leave government services due to a variety of pressures, disappearing underground to unknown fates (Ali et al., 2003; Anderson, 2001). In the 1999 boat incident, the first group of individuals, both adults and children, fled soon after arriving in Canada, most likely finding their way to their original destinations through a variety of means. While a small number of the minors from the final three boats left before their own IRB hearings, the majority took off from their living arrangements upon hearing that other minors’ refugee applications were not accepted, leaving them with no status in the country and slated for deportation. During interviews with those minors who later reconnected with care givers, most indicated that their families in China had urged them to leave care and reunite with traffickers (Charlton et al., 2002). There is also some concern that traffickers may have directly coerced the minors into moving onward to prearranged destinations. Facing pressure from both family and traffickers, the majority submitted to the pressure and abandoned their IRB claims.

Canadian approach to human trafficking Over the past decade, Canada has implemented a number of measures to focus on the protection of trafficked persons and the prosecution of traffickers. In 2002, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was introduced with Canada’s first attention to the growing global phenomenon of trafficking in persons: (a) No person shall knowingly organize the coming into Canada of one or more persons by means of abduction, fraud, deception, or use or threat of force or coercion.



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In November 2005, human trafficking provisions were added to the The Criminal Code of Canada: Every person who recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals or harbours a person, or exercises control, direction or influence over the movements of a person, for the purpose of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation is guilty of an indictable offence and liable (a)

(b)

to imprisonment for life if they kidnap, commit an aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault against, or cause death to, the victim during the commission of the offence; or to imprisonment for a term of not more than fourteen years in any other case. (Section 279)

Additionally, Citizenship and Immigration Canada introduced mechanisms in 2006 for providing safety and service for potentially trafficked individuals through a special-category temporary residents’ permit. This allows for up to 180 days of assistance from government agencies to escape the influence of traffickers, recover from physical or mental trauma, or participate in the prosecution of traffickers. Survivors can also apply to be recognized as a Convention refugee or a person in need of protection, or apply for permanent resident status on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds, as set by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In all cases of child trafficking, provincial child welfare authorities assume the role of guardian and care giver, ensuring that access is arranged for all services including legal assistance with claims for refugee status in the country.

Conclusion Discussion of the incidence of child trafficking in British Columbia is a contentious issue. Our analysis shows that a strong case can be made that a significant proportion—almost half—of UMs entering the province between 1991 and 2005 were trafficked children. Analysis of



(b) For the purpose of subsection (1), “organize,” with respect to persons, includes their recruitment or transportation and, after their entry into Canada, the receipt or harbouring of those persons.


Migrant Services files reveals that 165 UM records contained one or more indications of exploitation, coercion, deceit, or forcible trafficking, such as mistreatment, debt-bondage, and intimidation. In particular, our study found a very high incidence of trafficking (82 percent) among UMs who were smuggled into the country. Both the statistics and the experience of being trafficked should elicit a strong and concerted response on the part of authorities, other relevant organizations, and Canadian society. The specific case of the 131 children aboard the 1999 boats from China also highlights a problematic assumption that needs redressing regarding the classification of trafficked people. These children were not classified as Convention refugees but deemed by immigration authorities to be primarily economic migrants. However, it is incorrect to assume that this meant the children do not qualify as trafficked persons. It is not necessary to meet the definition of Convention refugee in order to be considered a victim of trafficking in persons. Records show that the children on the 1999 boats are all probable trafficking survivors because of the evidence of coercion, deception, debt-bondage, and perilous travel involved in their passage to North America. Had they arrived at a later date, this could have entitled them to treatment by the Canadian government according to regulations and policies designed to protect trafficking persons. They do, however, present a compelling image of a representative sample of youth at the crossroads, with associated dangers and dilemmas on the journey to adulthood.

Bibliography M. A. Ali, J. K. Gill, and S. Taraban (2003) “Unaccompanied/Separated Children Seeking Refugee Status in Ontario: A Review of Documented Policies and Practices” in M. J. Doucet (ed.) CERIS—The Ontario Metropolis Centre Working Paper No. 27 (Toronto: Joint Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement). Available at: http://ceris.metropolis. net/PolicyMatter/2004/PolicyMatters13.pdf P. Anderson (2001) “You don’t Belong here in Germany: On the Social Situation of Refugee Children in Germany”, Journal of Refugee Studies, 14(2): 187–199. P. Anisef and K. M. Kilbride (2000) “The Needs of Newcomer Youth and Emerging ‘Best Practices’ to Meet Those Needs.” pp. 63 CERIS (Toronto: CERIS). M. Beiser (1999) Strangers at the Gate: The “Boat people’s” First Ten Years in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated). M. Beiser, A. Shik, and M. Curyk (1999) “New Canadian Children and Youth Study Literature Review.” CERIS—The Ontario Metropolis Centre. A. Charlton, S. Duff, D. Grant, R. Pike, J. Sohn, and C. Taylor (2002) “The Challenges to Responding to Human Smuggling in Canada: Practitioners Reflect on



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the 1999 Boat Arrivals in British Columbia.” Working Paper Series No. 02–23 (Vancouver: RIIM), 2002. Child Family and Community Service Act [RSBC 1996] Victoria: Queen’s Printer. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (2008) “Protection and Assistance for Victims of Human Trafficking”, Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Available at: http://www.cic.gc.ca/EnGLIsh/inFORMation/applications/trp.asp. Accessed on August 27, 2008. Criminal Code of Canada [R.S., 1985, c. C–46] Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Family Relations Act [RSBC 1996] Victoria: Queen’s Printer. E. M. Gozdziak and M. N. Bump (2009) “Data and Research on Human Trafficking: Bibliography of Research-Based Literature” (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University). Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (1996) Guideline 3—Child Refugee Claimants: Procedural and Evidentiary Issues (Ottawa: Immigration and Refugee Board). Immigration and Refugee Protection Act [RSBC 2001 c. 27] Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. K. Kangaspunta (2007) “Collecting Data on Human Trafficking: Availability, Reliability and Comparability of Trafficking Data,” in E. U. Savona and S. Stafanizzi (eds.) Measuring Human Trafficking: Complexities and Pitfalls (New York: Springer), 37–47. J. Kumin and D. Chaikel (2002) “Taking the Agenda Forward: The Roundtable on Separated Children Seeking Asylum in Canada”, Refuge, 20(2): 73–77. M. Beiser (1999) Strangers at the Gate: The “Boat people’s” First Ten Years in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated). M. Beiser, A. Shik, and M. Curyk (1999) “New Canadian Children and Youth Study Literature Review.” CERIS—The Ontario Metropolis Centre. W. H. Myers III (1997) “Of Qinqing, Qinshu, Guanxi and Shetou: The Dynamic Elements of Chinese Irregular Population Movement” in Paul J. Smith (ed.) Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America’s Immigration Tradition (Washington: The Centre for Strategic and International Studies), 93–133. United Nations General Assembly (2000a) Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (Vienna: UNODC). United Nations General Assembly (2000b) Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2004) United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto (Vienna: UNODC). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2006) Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns (Vienna: UNODC).




In the Best Interest of the Child: Perceptions, Responses, and Challenges in Providing Assistance to Trafficked Children in the United States ˙ Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak

Human trafficking is believed to be one of the fastest growing areas of criminal activity (Denisova, 2001; Scarpa, 2006). Public discourse emphasizes the particular vulnerability of child victims, related to biophysiological, social, behavioral, and cognitive phases of the maturation process and underscores the necessity to act in the children’s best interests. There is little systematic knowledge about child victims, their characteristics, and experiences. They are often subsumed under the “women and children” heading without allowing for analysis of their special needs. Studies on trafficked children focus mainly on young women; research on trafficked boys is nonexistent. Limited knowledge impedes identification of trafficked children, obstructs provision of effective services, and limits prevention of repeat victimization. This chapter is informed by research, supported by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), to examine the experiences of children trafficked to the United States for sexual and labor exploitation and to analyze their prospects for reintegration into the wider society.1 The cohort of study participants was relatively small—142 children trafficked to the United States between 2000 and 2006 and resettled in several locations throughout the country2 —and the project’s goals lofty—to expand the knowledge base of the special needs of trafficked children and set forth recommendations aimed at preventing child trafficking, protecting child victims, and prosecuting their traffickers—the challenges and dilemmas numerous, and the opportunities rare.3 It is the challenges and dilemmas facing the child survivors of trafficking and the service 166



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providers assisting them that I wish to explore in this chapter. I juxtapose the survivors’ perceptions of their experiences with programmatic responses based on the principle of the “best interests of the child.” In particular, I explore the tensions between the children’s assessment of their experiences grounded in local, culturally diverse conceptualizations of childhoods and the child welfare frameworks proscribing standardized policy and programmatic responses toward trafficked children. I set forth recommendations aimed at reconciling the gap between the children’s perceptions of their needs and the institutional responses.

Trafficked children in federal care Child trafficking is defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of any person under the age of eighteen for the purposes of sexual or labor exploitation, forced labor, or slavery” (Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 2000). The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 20004 concurs with the general agreement in the international community that in the case of minors, the trafficking term applies whether a child was taken forcibly or voluntarily (Miko, 2004), simply because children are seen as not having agency and thus are considered unable to consent to being smuggled. I will return to the issue of agency and vulnerability throughout this chapter. The TVPA uses the definition of a child promulgated by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which states that “every human being below the age of 18, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier” is considered a child. Despite international attempts to recognize the evolving capacities of the child (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989), the TVPA uses chronological age as the universal measure of biological and psychological maturity and rejects cultural and social meanings attached to local systems of age ranking.5 There is no distinction in this definition between a 4- and a 17-year-old. Both are defined as children who need special safeguards and care. In addition, this definition assumes a natural progression from childhood to adulthood, from incompetence to competence, and from immaturity to maturity (Bluebond-Langer and Korbin, 2007). Since the passage of the TVPA in 2000 through September 2007, 1426 children were identified by the US federal government as victims of cross-border trafficking and received assistance from federally funded programs.7 The children hailed from several different countries. Mexico and Honduras accounted for the largest number of children (43 and 21).



˙ Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak

Providing Assistance to Trafficked Children

The Mexicans were almost evenly divided between unaccompanied (traveling without an adult guardian) and accompanied (traveling with adult family member) children.8 The majority of the Honduran children were unaccompanied. In the group of unaccompanied children, Mexico and Honduras were followed by China, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Morocco with six, three, two, and two children, respectively. Ghana, Cameroon, India, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua were a source of one victim each and Russia, Thailand, and Pakistan two. Fourteen of the accompanied children were from Peru and were freed as part of the same trafficking case. Three accompanied children were from Guatemala. There was one accompanied child from each of the following countries: Albania, China, Ecuador, El Salvador, Micronesia, India, and Pakistan. The children in our study ranged in age from 2 to 17 years, with the vast majority (83 percent) falling between 14 and 17 years of age when trafficked. Approximately two-thirds of all the children were 16 to 17 years old when trafficked. Not surprisingly, the unaccompanied children were older than those who were trafficked with family members. The mean age of the unaccompanied children was 16, while the mean age of the accompanied children was 13 years. The accompanied children ranged in age from 2 to 17 while the unaccompanied children ranged in age from 13 to 17. Eleven of the 15 trafficked children who were younger than 13 years of age came from Peru. This concentration and the overall wide age range of the accompanied children were largely the result of a single 2004 case that occurred in New York. The case, which involved a husband and wife’s operation to traffic Peruvians to the United States for labor, involved 69 Peruvian victims, including 14 children.9 The age difference between accompanied and unaccompanied victims suggests that the risk of unaccompanied trafficking increases with age. Adolescents embark on migration journeys more frequently, but are not free from exploitation by unscrupulous traffickers: coyotes, employers, and extended family members. The majority of the children were girls (83 percent), which may indicate a higher vulnerability of teenage girls for trafficking. However, this feature could also be an artificial result of both the victim identification process and the service eligibility determination. All of the accompanied Peruvian children were trafficked to the United States for labor exploitation. Together with their families, they were recruited to work in construction. The unaccompanied children were trafficked for labor, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude or a combination thereof. Trafficking for sexual exploitation was the



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most prevalent form of abuse among unaccompanied children. More than 70 percent of all the unaccompanied minors were trafficked for sexual exploitation or a combination of sexual and labor exploitation. A smaller percentage of children, 24 percent, were trafficked solely for labor, including domestic servitude. The diversity of the children was the most striking characteristic. The children hailed from four continents, represented several different ethnic and linguistic groups and a wide range of family backgrounds; some were abducted by strangers but many were brought to the United States by family members or friends; some endured several years at the hands of their traffickers; six of the unaccompanied children were rescued from their trafficking situation before the exploitation actually occurred. We had difficulty finding two children that were very similar. Even girls who were part of the same trafficking case appeared to be different. Interestingly, the traffickers treated them differently as well. In one case, four adolescent girls were trafficked together and forced to work in the same bar. The girls with kinship ties to their “employers” were treated very differently than those who could not claim such a relationship; they could keep their earnings, they could send remittances home, and they were given prettier clothing. All the unaccompanied children were placed in the unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) programs, a group of specialized foster care programs funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and implemented by the Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS). Children rescued with family members received services as part of their family unit.

Proper childhoods: Western assumptions versus reality The US law considers all the victims who were trafficked prior to turning 18 years of age as children. In reality the concepts of “child” and “childhood” vary according to social, cultural, historical, religious, and rational norms as well as according to one’s personal circumstances. There are tremendous differences between a 4- and a 17-year-old. There are also often considerable differences between two 17-year-olds, particularly individuals coming from different cultural, social, and economic backgrounds. Gender differences need to be accounted for as well. Many of the 16–17 year olds in our study considered themselves adults and had difficulty adjusting to programs which treated them as “children” and assisted them in “reclaiming their lost childhood.”10





They did not want to follow rules not commensurable with their own self-image. They not only balked at things like curfews and chores, but also often valued work more than education. In fact, some of the adolescent boys trafficked for labor exploitation wanted to continue working for the same employer. They enjoyed construction work and liked being able to send remittances home; all they hoped for were remuneration commensurate with the work they performed and better working conditions: eight-hour work days with breaks for lunch. Their self-image stood in sharp contrast with childhood ideals championed by the programs serving them. They identified as labor migrants while the programs considered them victims of trafficking. Several girls had children of their own; some were reunited with children they left at home and some gave birth while in the United States. A couple of girls were married before they migrated. They identified as wives and mothers with associated roles and responsibilities, while the social workers referred to them as “children having children.” Angie,11 who was smuggled by a “coyote” from Honduras to Texas, was pregnant with a son by a boyfriend she met while working in a bar. She spoke at length about the tension between her and her social worker whom she described as always “irritated and angry” and not having any understanding of Angie’s competing demands as a mother when it came to completing chores in the group home where she lived. Another Honduran girl, Elisa, was 19 years old when we interviewed her, but entered the foster care program when she was 15. Elisa complained bitterly that her Cuban-American foster mother treated her as if she was an eight-year-old. Elsa described her foster mother as “very old-fashioned.” Elisa added, “She thinks I am a prostitute. I am not a prostitute! I worked in a cantina and danced for men, but I am not a prostitute.” The foster mother’s perceptions of Elisa affected the way she treated her. From the beginning the foster mother had little faith in Elisa’s ability to make good choices. She tried preventing Elisa from making bad decisions by limiting her freedoms. She called Elisa “spoiled” and said she had bad manners. She punished Elisa by not letting her go out with friends, giving her “time-out,” and not allowing her to watch television. When we asked Elisa’s case worker what she thought about the foster mother’s parenting, we were told that because Elisa was trafficked when she was quite young (13 years old), she was not “parented properly” and had to “learn limits.” “It is in her best interest to have boundaries,” said the case worker. “She is very reluctant to study and she gravitates towards deviant peers.” Elisa rebelled by skipping school on a regular basis, missing as many as 3 days a week. Things changed



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when Elisa’s lawyer explained that if she continued to skip school she would jeopardize her ability to stay in the United States. “He showed me choices,” Elisa said. Interestingly, phrases such as “young lady” or “young woman” were reserved for girls who “behaved” and conformed to the social workers’ image of “good children who were victimized by others.” Catalina, also from Honduras, was described by her case worker as “an attractive young lady, soft-spoken and gentle-spirited.” A note in Catalina’s case file indicated that her “(. . .) cognitive development is above chronological age expectations. She consistently demonstrates her knowledge of life skills in caring for herself and her roommate. She has experienced life to a degree that exceeds the norm for someone her age.” Indeed, Catalina’s childhood was far from the idealized version present in Western imaginations. Her father was murdered when she was nine years old. After his death Catalina moved to her aunt’s house. She became pregnant at 14 and moved in with the extended family of the baby’s father. He lived with his wife and their three children. Catalina’s sister-in-law arranged for her to go to Texas and work in a bar to support her son. Catalina owed her smuggler a $7500 smuggling “fee.” She was rescued when the bar owner was arrested about a year after she came to the United States. In the United States the system of care for trafficked children has been developed within a framework based on middle-class Western ideals about childhood as a time of dependency and innocence during which children are socialized by adults and become competent social actors. Economic responsibilities are generally mediated by adults so that the children can grow up free from pressures of work and child care duties. Children who are not raised in this way are considered “victims” who have had their childhood stolen from them. This framework views universal concern for children as transcending political and social divides; assumes a universally applicable model of childhood development; presupposes a consensus on what policies should be in place to realize the best interests of the child; assumes that child victims have universal needs, such as a need for rehabilitation; and promotes a therapeutic model of service provision.

Child labor The realities experienced by the children in our study, even before their trafficking ordeals, differed from these ideals. Extreme poverty, at time compounded by family illness, drove them to migrate. Family members who facilitated their migration often presented it as an opportunity to





help the child “pay back” or support parents. Although many of these children worked in their countries of origin—took care of siblings, did house work, worked on family farms, and sold wood or foodstuffs in the street—they seldom earned wages for their labor. Thus, a chance to work for wages was seen as an opportunity not to be missed. Virtually all children in this study came to the United States intent on finding employment. Although many countries have signed and ratified the International Labor Organization Conventions on the Minimum Age of Employment and Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor as well as the CRC, child labor is common in many parts of the world, including the countries of origin of the trafficked minors we studied.12 Consider Honduras, a country that had the second largest representation in our sample. According to an ILO survey (Martins Oliveira and Marshatz, 2004), approximately 15 percent of Honduran children ages 5–17 worked. Approximately 60 percent of child workers in Honduras are unpaid family workers, while 30 percent work as private employees. More children work as unpaid family workers in rural areas (66 percent) than in urban areas (46 percent). Males tend to participate at a greater rate than females do. By the age of 17, 60 percent of Honduran males are in the labor market compared to 18 percent of females, but 42 percent of 14-year-old girls in rural areas and 19 percent in urban areas work at home (Jeong, 2005). The fact that a large percentage of Honduran working children do so in the home for no remuneration has hampered efforts to enforce labor standards. Honduras has complemented its labor laws with compulsory schooling legislation. In Honduras, education is mandatory until the age of 13 when secondary education begins. Many Honduran adolescents do not continue with schooling beyond the compulsory age, evidenced by the large percentage of Honduran adolescents who enter the labor force at 13 (Jeong, 2005). This situation also affected the circumstances of the Honduran children in our study. Extended family members took advantage of the cultural norm of child labor and did not see it as exploitation and the ethnic community within which these children operated in the United States did not consider working children an anomaly either. The children valued work more than they valued education.

Child fostering Middle-class Eurocentric ideals often assume that, apart from exceptional cases, children live in nuclear families, experience childhood together with their siblings, and have access to resources provided by



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both biological parents.13 Research contradicts this assumption and documents a wide range of living arrangements experienced by children in poor countries (Lloyd and Desai, 1992). A number of researchers assert that “the root of modern-day trafficking is the custom of child fostering, in which parents may send their children to live with relations and friends for economic or moral reasons” (Bass, 2004: 153). Parents do not see the Pied Piper figures as “slave traders” and their children’s departure as “enslavement” but rather as “a valuable heritage and traditional way of educating a child” (Robson, 2005: 70). Indeed, child fostering or circulation is a long-standing cultural practice in many regions (Fonesca, 1986), including West Africa (see Bledsoe, 1990; Goody, 1982; Renne, 2003; Schildkraut, 1973); Latin America (Leinaweaver, 2007; Weismantel, 1995); and the Pacific (Brady, 1996; Caroll, 1970; Donner, 1999; Modell, 1998). In West Africa, fostering is an important technique rooted in kinship structures and traditions. Children are not sent out only in the event of crisis; sending of children is practiced by both stable and unstable families, married and single mothers (Isiugo-Abanihe, 1985, 1991). The supportive role of kinsmen, close and distant, in child rearing has been widely documented (Page, 1989). In Latin America, “child circulation” is a principal way in which Peruvian rural-to-urban migrants move children between houses as part of a common survival and betterment strategy when navigating social and economic inequality (Leinaweaver, 2007). For the receiving family, child circulation represents strategic labor recruitment; for the sending household, it spells relief from the economic burdens of child rearing and constitutes a source of highly desirable remittances. A considerable proportion of children in Mexico were found to spend some time during childhood without a father. When births outside a union are included, one-fifth of Mexican children were affected. An additional 5 percent of Mexican children do not live with their mothers (Richter, 1988). Indeed, the majority of the children in our study lived with friends or extended family prior to being trafficked and were sent to live with friends or family in the United States. Many children were raised by their grandparents. Florencia’s mother was 19 when she gave birth to her. When Florencia was 3 days old, she was sent to her grandparents in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. They supported her until she was 14, but when her grandfather was laid off Florencia had to give up schooling and search for work. She ended up in the United States stripping in a bar on the East Coast and earning $500 a night. Melinda lived in Honduras with her parents and siblings. Both of her parents were diabetic. When the family could not afford badly needed medical assistance—Melinda’s





father needed surgery—they looked for relatives who could provide Melinda with work in the United States. Eva, who is from Cameroon, was sent, at the age of 10, to live with her maternal uncle’s friend in Chicago. She said that it was common to foster children in Cameroon. Apparently, her mother fostered several poor children from surrounding villages who worked in her restaurant. The research team struggled with ways to reconcile the universal definitions of a “child” and “childhood” found in the child welfare frameworks with the local, culturally diverse, conceptualizations of childhood and adulthood expressed by the children. The service providers seemed prone to accepting the Western assumptions about childhood as an inevitable concept underlying the assistance apparatus. Several service providers argued that the trafficked children “were pushed into early adulthood” and it was in their best interest to “reclaim their lost childhood.” Many experienced providers did talk about cultural sensitivity and the need for child-centered approach. A few programs exhibited much flexibility and adopted a “wait and see” approach in terms of directing the children in their care to particular services. However, most discussions with service providers and foster parents ended with statements about “best interests of the child,” seen mainly from the perspective of the Western caretakers who emphasized their responsibility to abide by child welfare laws.

Best interests and the rights of the child: A necessary tension? The best-interest standard is a widely used ethical, legal, and social basis for policy and decision making involving children (Kopelman, 1997). The origins of the “child’s best interests” principle date back to the late nineteenth century when the European public became aware of the plight of exploited, abused, and neglected children through popular novels such as those penned by Charles Dickens. In addition, influential lobbies—composed of members of the women’s movement, the new specialty of pediatrics, and the nurses’ home health programs—began to form at the turn of the twentieth century to seek protection of children from neglect, cruelty, and exploitation by setting legally enforceable thresholds of acceptable parenting (English, 1989; Kopelman, 1997; Wilson, 1989). In 1989, the principle became part of the CRC. In the intervening years the principle come under attack as self-defeating, individualistic, unknowable, vague, dangerous, and open to abuse (McGough, 1995; Ruddick, 1989; Rodham, 1973; Veatch, 1981, 1995).



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Attempts have also been made to defend the principle as a threshold for intervention and judgment; an ideal to establish policies regarding prima facie duties; and as a standard of reasonableness (Kopelman, 1997). Despite criticisms, the best interest principle remains the dominant legal standard in actions concerning children, including migrant and trafficked children. The best interest principle sometimes seems to contradict the right of the child to participate in determining her best interests. The principles of participation and best interests are often said to represent two different perspectives: a rights-based and a protectionist approach. The question, thus, remains: Who determines the best interests of the trafficked child and how? How does the determination of the child’s best interests correspond with the child’s right to express her wishes? There is consensus in the literature that Western policy makers and caretakers tend to conflate the children’s best interests with their right to express their wishes and feelings (Bluebond-Langer and Korbin, 2007). In the course of this research we have seen many examples of service providers deciding on the child’s best interest rather than advocating for her wishes and feelings. Elisa did not want to be placed in foster care; she wished to return to Honduras. She was counseled it was not in her best interest to return home: the uncles involved in her trafficking were deported to Honduras and might try to traffic her again. Elisa did not think the uncles posed a threat, but did concede that it might be best to stay in the United States because she wished to visit her mother who was in a California jail for trafficking her twin daughters. Again, Elisa was counseled against visiting her incarcerated mother, and was told that it was not in her best interest to see her abuser. Despite the advice, Elisa kept in touch with her mother through letters and phone calls. Persistence paid off and in the end she did travel to California, accompanied by her twin sister and their case worker. A note in Elisa’s file described the trip as very successful: “The trip went well. The girls’ mother was supportive, encouraging, and very appropriate with her daughters during the visit. She encouraged her daughters to work hard in school and put Christ first in their lives.” The case worker was able to talk to the mother and, upon hearing more of her story, she determined that despite the mother’s involvement in her daughters’ trafficking “contact with the mother was not detrimental to the girls’ safety.” While in foster care, Elisa’s “best interests” were determined mainly by her foster mother. She thought Elisa should stay home, not go out with friends, and study instead of watching TV. Elisa rebelled. When she became pregnant she left her foster family to live with the baby’s father





and, after they broke up, in a group home. As her situation changed, the social workers’ assessment of Elisa changed. The case worker noted that “Elisa is a very outgoing and confident young woman. Very strongwilled and determined. Though these traits created difficulties when she was in foster care, she now is applying them to planning for the future and is showing much more understanding of living independently and using the responsibilities she has.” From fully supporting the decisions of the foster mother regarding Elisa’s best interests, the social worker was now advocating for Elisa’s rights to determine her own best interests and the interests of Alejandro, her infant son. Elisa welcomed this change in attitudes, but could not articulate the reason for this change. Agency and vulnerability The criteria used by foster parents and service providers for determining a child’s best interests were based on a culture-specific understanding of children as “nurtured” by their caretakers. As indicated earlier, the TVPA does not distinguish between 4- and 17-year-olds. It does, however, make a clear distinction—ideological, strategic, and operational— between children and adults. “This distinction is based on the principle that the development of children as human beings is a process and is not complete as long as they are minors. Children are deemed ‘innocent’ and in need of special protection and assistance in making decisions. It is believed that minors cannot be expected to act in their own best interest as their ability to exercise full agency is not yet entirely developed” (Sanghera, 2005: 13). Accordingly, “all persons under the age of 18 constitute a homogenous category—children, devoid equally of sexual identity and sexual activity, bereft equally of the ability to exercise agency and hence in need of identical protective measures” (Sanghera, 2005: 6). The research team did not question the legal framework which classifies children as trafficked whether they were forced or coerced into following their traffickers. We accepted the children’s assertion that they wanted to come to the United States while recognizing that, at the time of making the decision to migrate, they might have had no idea about the abuse and exploitation they would face once they crossed the border, and consequently might not have agreed to being trafficked. The bigger challenge was related to where “to draw a line between coercion and consent for young people under the age of 18 and how best to promote their rights and agency while still protecting them” (Kempandoo et al., 2005: xxv). The dilemma was whether to treat them as vulnerable victims—the way the US law does, stipulating who is a victim and thus



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who is eligible for services—or as survivors with a great deal of resilience facilitating their integration into the wider society, or both. Understanding the children’s perception of their identity as victims plays an important role in posttrafficking adjustment. None of the children in our study were overtly happy, but many did not see themselves as mistreated. Children who cooperated with the perpetrators or enjoyed aspects of their experiences (such as clothes, freedom, boyfriends, drugs, or alcohol) may have been, in the words of the social workers, “more susceptible to trauma,” but also more resistant to therapy. Thus, their self-identity, understanding of their situation, and subsequent goals often conflicted with the goals of service providers. The children’s lack of identity as victims was closely related to their expectations about coming to the United States. Almost all of the children were highly motivated to migrate to the United States in the hope of earning money, as many had compelling reasons to send remittances. They did not equate labor migration with victimhood. Typically, the children’s desire to earn money did not change once they were rescued. Obviously, the programs assisting trafficked children followed US laws requiring children to attend school; regulations defining the age of employment and number of hours a minor child is allowed to work; and rules about work permits. These restrictions ran counter to many children’s goals and resulted in adjustment challenges; they affected the children’s commitment to education and their desire to remain in care. Although many reports (Salt, 2000) indicate involvement of large criminal networks in child trafficking, family participation in child trafficking should not be underestimated. With four exceptions, parents or grandparents had some involvement in the trafficking of the studied children. At minimum, the children were embarking on the migration journey with their blessing and in many cases with their financial help. In two cases parents handed their daughters over to a snakehead to smuggle them from China to the United States. Four girls, in four separate cases, were trafficked by their mothers and/or grandmothers from Honduras to the United States to work in cantinas. In Linda’s case, both parents traveled with their daughter from Morocco to the United States on tourist visas. Both parents returned home, her father after a month and her mother when the 6-month visa expired. They left Linda with her Moroccan uncle and his American wife in a domestic servitude situation. Family involvement in the trafficking of the girls in this study was quite considerable. However, the trafficked children did not speak of





criminal networks, but rather focused on the close relationships between themselves and those who helped them cross the border. Some girls were upset when law enforcement referred to their family members as traffickers; even the children who felt wronged by their loved ones had difficulty conceptualizing their actions as criminal. Ana’s grandparents told her about an “opportunity” to go to the United States. Her mother arranged a meeting with a coyote (smuggler) whom her father subsequently paid $10,000. Apparently, Ana’s grandfather later changed his mind and advised her not to go, but she decided to go regardless. In case files this involvement was often described as “colluding with the traffickers,” although, according to the children, many parents genuinely believed that they were improving their children’s prospects for the future and were unaware that the illegal migration would turn into severe exploitation. As indicated above, Elisa and her twin did not vilify their mother. They felt she had done nothing wrong and did not understand why she had been arrested. Many children thought the parents were facilitating access to education or to employment. This perception of relatives as “helpers” was often an obstacle for prosecutors and service providers. The children’s perception of their relatives as facilitators of a better life in the United States and the resulting conceptualization of their trafficking experiences as “work” interfered with gathering information by the prosecution. Children were reluctant to provide law enforcement with details about their journey to the United States and to identify their relatives as perpetrators of crimes. Some children who clearly understood that their parents wronged them were nevertheless ready to forgive and reconcile with their families. Eva, for example, told us that she would very much like to go and visit her parents in Cameroon to tell them that she has forgiven them for sending her away. She is particularly keen “to hug her father, who did not want her to go to the States because he thought she was too young to be living with strangers in a different country.” When asked whether she calls her parents often, she admitted that it is hard to have a close relationship with people whom she barely remembers; Eva spent almost a decade in domestic servitude in the United States. The children’s reluctance to identify as victims stood in sharp contrast with the service providers’ perceptions. They saw them as victims mainly because laws treated them as victims. Some case workers, however, emphasized the children’s resilience and appreciated our deliberate use of the term “survivors.” While we recognized the legal necessity



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to use the term “victim,” therapeutically speaking the identity of a “victim” was often counterproductive.

The contrast between the programs’ perceptions of the children’s best interests and the girls’ wishes was strongest surrounding the psychological consequences of trafficking and culturally appropriate responses. Most programs used the Western concept of “trauma” as the basis to both imagine the trafficked children’s experiences and promote a therapeutic model of rehabilitation services. A relatively small number of children in this study met the criteria of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Some children presented no psychological disturbance, while others exhibited symptoms of depression. Indeed, depression was the most common diagnosis.14 To mitigate the psychological consequences of trafficking, children were offered a wide range of mental health services: individual or group therapy, counseling by a torture treatment specialist, and art therapy. Initially, the majority of the children refused to avail themselves of psychological services but program staff was persistent. Two girls, with suspected sexual victimization, were referred to a bilingual counselor; they participated in five counseling sessions, but refused to continue. Several survivors were concerned that going to therapy would stigmatize them further and label them as “crazy.” One girl joked that she was “too lazy to go to counseling every week.” She also added that she did not know what she would talk about in the sessions. Case workers often commented that the “girls went into therapy kicking and screaming,” but mental health services were considered in the children’s best interests. Therapy proved “retriggering” for Catalina; she reported having nightmares after her sessions. Upon consultation with a different clinician, a decision was made not to ask questions that did not relate to concrete aspects of the present as such discussions reopened the pain of the trafficking experience. The therapist instead engaged with Catalina around an art project, thinking this approach would be less threatening. However, Catalina was still reluctant to participate. Program staff tried many different tactics to convince the survivors about the efficacy of mental health programs. One girl was told that if she did not go to counseling and did not take her medication she would be separated from her baby.



Trauma and treatment


Many programs clearly wanted all children to participate in therapy and were convinced about the efficacy of this treatment. Some followed their agency’s protocol as to the appropriate use of therapy and the children’s interest and willingness to attend sessions, but the pressure was on the children to participate in counseling. Eventually, most children were in treatment. Again, the service providers’ assessment of what was in the girls’ best interests prevailed. With one exception, programs did not consider indigenous healing strategies, social justice, or human rights approaches; for most programs cultural competence was limited to finding a Western-trained therapist who could communicate with the survivor in her native language. The Peruvian children and their families who insisted on seeing a Catholic priest were the only exception; the local Hispanic congregation embraced them and provided necessary support. The push for mental health services was consistent with strategies employed to deal with other victimized populations. The number of programs established to provide psychological help to refugees, victims of wartime violence, and, more recently, trafficked victims has grown exponentially (Bracken et al., 1997). The expansion of such programs indicates the prominence of mental health concepts in the forced migration field. Particularly prominent is the discourse of “trauma” as a major articulator of human suffering (Summerfield, 2000: 417). This prominence is based on the premise that trafficking, ethnic cleansing, war, and civil strife constitute mental health emergencies and result in post-traumatic stress, which has, in turn, led to the use of treatment modalities based on the Western biomedical model. At the same time, other models, building on the victims’ own resilience, indigenous coping strategies, and spirituality, are not being explored as much as they could or should. The expansion of trauma programs is directly related to what Kleinman calls “medicalization of human suffering” (Kleinman et al., 1997). Undeniably, most of the children in our study suffered incredible ordeals and, without safe environments in which to recover, they were at risk for retrafficking. Indeed, there were a couple of instances where children were contacted by their traffickers pretending to be relatives. Vigilance of the staff protected the children from revictimization. The programs’ unprecedented dedication to the protection of the children in their care was admirable. At the same time, by focusing so much on the children’s vulnerability the programs often lost sight of the children’s resiliency. Preoccupied with Western standards of child welfare,



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staff did not have adequate resources to tap into culturally relevant healing strategies.

Studies of children and childhoods increasingly see children as “at once developing beings, in possession of agency, and to varying degrees vulnerable.” Developments occurring in the field of childhood studies parallel developments in women’s studies which consider women as social actors and place them in theories of behavior, culture, and society (Bluebond-Langer and Korbin, 2007: 242). Unfortunately, the discourse on child trafficking focuses mainly on the vulnerability and victimization of trafficked children; yet, recognition of the coexistence of agency and vulnerability is particularly important in the child trafficking domain. This recognition influences the way we conduct research with trafficked children and affects our ethical responsibilities to the studied children. It is important because it affects—or should affect— institutional responses to survivors of trafficking. While there is no denying that trafficked children have often been severely abused and exploited, one must also consider issues of agency and resiliency while analyzing this phenomenon, designing services for trafficked minors, and crafting policy responses aimed at preventing child trafficking, providing assistance to survivors, and prosecuting perpetrators. More specifically: There is a need to consult children’s voices, experiences, and perspectives to explicitly inform and shape policy decisions and programmatic responses. Listening to the voices of children has become a powerful mantra for activists and policy makers worldwide. Yet, despite such pronouncements, many of the trafficked children found their voices silenced or ignored in the name of their “best interests.” There is a need to be flexible. Children’s perception of the nature of their experiences and their families’ involvement in trafficking may be at odds with the perceptions held by law enforcement and service providers. Despite these differences, law enforcement and service providers need to be flexible enough to allow children to have different assessment of what happened to them and who wronged them. There is a need to educate parents about the danger of child trafficking. Some parents genuinely believed that they were sending their children across international borders with a trusted coyote to provide them with educational or employment opportunities. Parents need to be educated about the dangers involved in such journeys including the



Toward solutions and resolutions


possibility that the “travel agent” they hire might turn their child over to an employer who purchases and resells them as a “commodity” to a customer, who may sexually exploit the children and place them in domestic servitude situations, or in sweatshops. There is a need to educate children about their rights and about international conventions protecting children. Trafficked children need to be educated about the way the law views certain actions of adults as criminal. This kind of training should focus on the legal aspects of child trafficking, not on moral assessments of the parents’ actions.

Notes 1. Other publications based on this research include Bump (2009), Go´zdziak (2008), Go´zdziak and MacDonnell (2007), and Go´zdziak et al. (2006). 2. In order to ensure safety of the children I refrain from identifying the location where they have been resettled. 3. The research included analysis of statistical data provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) on the 142 children in federally funded programs, ethnographic interviews with 26 key informants, representing 19 foster care and unaccompanied minors programs and 17 survivors of child trafficking, as well as in-depth review of 31 case files. 4. Under TVPA, child victims are eligible for different services and benefits, including access to the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) programs, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIPS), and the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. Victims between ages 16 and 24 who have received work permits may be eligible for Job Corps. They can also apply to remain in the United States under the T-Visa program. 5. See Bluebond-Langer and Korbin (2007), La Fontaine (1978), and Rosen (2007) for a discussion of cultural meanings of age and childhood. 6. Since the completion of this study additional 70 child victims of cross-border trafficking have been identified and placed in federally funded rehabilitation programs, bringing the total number of trafficked children to 212 at the end of FY 2009. The data on the 142 children included in the research sample come from the ORR which is responsible for children trafficked to the United States. 7. This is the only cohort of children trafficked to the United States about whom official statistics are available. Nongovernmental organizations claim they assist trafficked minors, but they keep these data confidential and often do not refer their clients to the federal government for service eligibility determination. Additionally, significant numbers of trafficked children had been referred to the federal government but were determined ineligible for publically funded services. Unfortunately, the government does not keep data on those denied services. 8. We received data on unaccompanied/accompanied status for 102 of the 142 children. 9. See US Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, News Release. “Suffolk County Couple Plead Guilty to Forced



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11. 12.

13.

14.

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Labor, Alien Smuggling Charges.” November 5, 2004. http://usinfo.state. gov/gi/Archive/2004/Nov/09-464819.html. I use the word “children” because service providers conceptualized them as children. Programs conflate children (below the age of 12) with adolescents (12–18 year olds) because US law defines everyone under the age of 18 as needing protection and also because it is easier to elicit compassion around “children” who are perceived as vulnerable than around adolescent migrants who are apt to trigger security fears (Uehling, 2008: 838). All names are pseudonyms. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 living in developing countries qualify as child laborer. At least 120 million children work full-time. Sixty one percent of child laborers are in Asia, 32 percent in Africa, and 7 percent in Latin America. Their work varies, from helping with family farm to performing physically demanding tasks in manufacturing, construction, and extractive industries (Henne and Moseley, 2005). Given the rates of single parenthood, divorce, remarriage, and resulting blended families, these ideals are no longer prevalent among Western families either and yet prevail in policy making. The “diagnoses” were performed by case managers who referred the survivors to clinical social workers, psychologists, or psychiatrists.

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R. M. Veatch (1995) “Abandoning Informed Consent”, The Hastings Center Report, 25(2): 5–12. M. Weismantel (1995) “Making Kin: Kinship Theory and Zumbagua Adoptions”, American Ethnologist, 22(4): 685–709. A. L. Wilson (1989) “Development of the US Federal Role in Children’s Health Care: A Critical Appraisal” in L. M. Kopelman and J. C. Moskop (eds) Children and Health Care: Moral and Social Issues (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers), 27–65.



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Social Mobility in Children’s Mobility? An Investigation into Child Circulation among the Maasai of Kenya Caroline Archambault and Joost de Laat

Introduction There is an old Maasai children’s story about a young brother and sister who, following the death of their mother, are sent to live with an evil, abusive stepmother. The siblings eventually run away and after several misadventures with the Devil, they secure the Devil’s livestock, kill their stepmother and father, and live happily ever after. This Maasai story, retold by Hollis (1905), recalls the tales of the Grimm brothers, whose protagonists—Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and Cinderella—were also abused at the hands of evil stepmothers. This suggests that the fear that fostered or adopted children might be vulnerable to the “wicked whims” of nonnatal caretakers is not only a Western preoccupation. In fact, a sizeable body of literature (Ainsworth, 1996; Akresh, 2004; Bledsoe et al., 1988; Canagarajah and Coulombe, 1997; Castle, 1996; Gage, 2005; Lloyd and Blanc, 1996; Oni, 1995; Sudre et al., 1990; Zimmerman, 2002) on the widespread practice of child circulation into nonnatal families throughout the world has often focused on trying to answer the “Cinderella hypothesis”: whether children who are cared for by nonnatal parents are more readily subjected to neglect, mistreatment, or abuse by their caretakers than children who are living under the care and protection of their natal parents. Recent policy and advocacy on children and migration has tended to emphasize the risks faced by children in forced migration circumstances, such as child refugees or trafficked children (Adepoju, 2005; Watters, 2008; Wessells, 2006). Anthropological and sociological work on child fosterage, on the other hand, has emphasized children’s movements into nonnatal households 187



9

Child Circulation among the Maasai of Kenya

as an important strategy of children’s empowerment and social mobility. In many sub-Saharan African contexts, child fostering helps to minimize the risks of child morbidity and mortality by redistributing the burdens of parenthood (Bledsoe and Brandon, 1992; Bledsoe and Isiugo-Abanihe, 1989). In South Africa, fostering has been shown to improve children’s access to education (Zimmerman, 2002). As Verhoef and Morelli (2007) have found in Cameroon, children are often fostered to close relatives to ensure “positive social environments for developing children,” and placed in “safe places for children to ‘feel free’ ” (p. 47). In Kenya, Benin, and other West African countries, child circulation is used to promote a community ideal of equality, social cohesion, and extended notions of parenting believed to be important to the well-being of children (Alber, 2003; Goody, 1982; Shell-Duncan, 1994). This chapter analyzes children’s mobility and the Cinderella hypothesis by exploring the dynamics of child circulation among the Maasai of Southern Kenya. In Enkop,1 the community site of this study, child movement in the form of fosterage is pervasive and, by and large, appears to be an important strategy of social mobility for the children involved. The complex processes of child fostering in this community are explored through the story of one young migrant, Kosen, as well as through a representative household survey that captures information on the extent of children’s movements and on the nature and types of families between which children circulate. Fostered children and their host siblings appear very similar in terms of education and work, likely because the goal of much of this fosterage is for the children involved to have better access to education. Comparisons of families who foster out children with families that receive them reveal mixed results with respect to their comparative socioeconomic status, reflecting that many different factors (sometimes unobservable such as personal affinities between children and their hosts) make households attractive to children seeking various opportunities. Furthermore, the case study of Enkop highlights the contribution of qualitative research approaches as revealing richer and more meaningful interpretations of child circulation than quantitative methodologies alone. The case of Kosen illustrates the complex ways in which children assess their well-being in nonnatal homes and the trade-offs that they may be willing to make as they aspire to reach their goals. Kosen’s story also highlights children’s own agency in fosterage arrangements. Finally, this chapter explores the recent evolution of child circulation in Enkop. In the face of global and local discourses of sedentarization



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and biologically nuclearized family life that have contributed to and resulted from dramatic ecological and economic changes, some Maasai of Enkop appear to be growing weary of their fosterage system. The circle of acceptable kin to whom one can send a child seems to have diminished to include only immediate family. We explore these perceptions and suggest future research on the implications such changes will have on fosterage practices. This volume aims at highlighting the position of mobile children at the crossroads of competing and conflicting priorities. While recognizing that migrant children may be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, the chapters within seek to deconstruct migrant children as a universally vulnerable category. This chapter serves to illustrate that there are forms of mobility that may, in fact, be critical for children’s well-being. We should be cautious of projecting sedentarizing discourses and narrow concepts of the modern family that threaten to erode such a system of opportunity and support. Thus, in an effort to protect migrant children at the crossroads, we may want to consider focusing on reinfusing the fosterage system with integrity by telling stories, as we have done here, not of evil and wicked stepmothers but rather of the inspiration and opportunities that living with nonnatal kin may afford to children; the stuff of real fairytales in Maasailand.

Capturing children’s mobility This chapter is based on over six years of periodic fieldwork within the community of Enkop starting in 2003 when Archambault lived in the community for two years conducting her dissertation fieldwork on education and social change. In January of 2005, both authors conducted a survey in the Enkop area with the help of five local Maasai research assistants. The main purpose of the survey was to elucidate the ways in which children’s schooling was tied to the social and economic situations of various family and residential members. It had become evident during prolonged fieldwork that the social unit of support for children was not simply limited to the household (enkaji). The larger coresidential units of olmarei (family) and enkang (homestead) seemed to matter significantly in determining children’s opportunities. In light of these findings, a unique survey approach was designed and implemented which sampled not at the level of household (enkaji), but at the level of homestead (enkang) and collected information on all families and households within each homestead. Based on a complete census list of all homesteads in the Enkop area, we randomly selected



Caroline Archambault and Joost de Laat


15 percent (n = 76) of these to be interviewed. In each homestead we identified and interviewed all husbands and wives (182 husbands and 263 wives). Questions focused on collecting demographic and socioeconomic data as well as more detailed information on education characteristics and attitudes toward schooling. A second important feature of the survey was that we collected information not only on all individuals present in each of the houses, regardless of their relationship to household head (therefore including children who were circulating), but also on all children born to the mother of the house who were not currently living in the house or in the rest of the homestead. This approach resulted in a rich dataset illustrating the extent of child circulation, the reasons motivating children’s migrations, and the implications that such movements have on children’s opportunities, including education. In addition, we conducted several in-depth interviews with young members of the community and parents about child adoption and fosterage.

Child circulation in Enkop Child fostering, and the mobility that this entails, seems conspicuously absent in recent discussions of children and migration. Emphasis on children’s mobility in situations of crisis leads to an assumption that mobile children are vulnerable (Whitehead and Hashim, 2005). That certain forms of child migration, like child fosterage, often are empowering processes for children should not be overlooked. Child fosterage is a widespread practice throughout the world. In sub-Saharan Africa some suggest that up to 20 percent of children are fostered away from their natal homes at any point in time and that over 50 percent of adults have been fostered at one point or another in their lives (Zimmerman, 2002). Fosterage and adoption, not trafficking or flight from conflict, are the main factors prompting the flow of many children across Maasai households in Enkop, Kenya. Enkop is a predominantly Maasai community stretched over 200,000 acres of semi-arid savannah in Southern Kenya and includes approximately 10,500 residents (Archambault, 2007). Limited and variable rainfall and poor soils encourage pastoralism, based on the rearing of cattle, goats, sheep, and, occasionally, camels, as the main livelihood strategy. There is little infrastructure and industry in Enkop, no electricity and no paved roads. The closest tarmac road is 35 km away and the town center comprises of a dozen kiosks along railroad tracks. The center is the site of a lively weekly livestock and goods market. The administrative



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office of the local chief, a veterinary office, a small medical clinic, a primary school, and half a dozen small churches are located on the periphery of the town. With the exception of a few families living in town, most residents of Enkop live in traditional Maasai homesteads, spread across the landscape, called inkangitie (singular: enkang). An enkang is often made up of multiple olmarei (families), which include a husband and his wives. Each wife usually lives in her own enkaji (house) with her own children and children of others. Members of an enkang pull together resources and labor. Typically, enkang members cooperate in herding, carrying out domestic tasks (fetching water and firewood), and providing childcare. Livestock are often herded together and kept at night in the central kraal (corral) of the enkang. Individual ownership of the animals is only apparent when women come out to milk their animals. As with cattle, it is not always evident to which house a child belongs. Children move almost seamlessly between houses, doing chores for other mothers or eating or playing in other houses. Maasai proverbs and sayings convey the message that children are a gift of God, to be raised and cared for by the entire community (Talle, 2004). According to our data, almost a third (28.4 percent) of households in Enkop had at least one circulating child present in the household at the time of the survey.2 Of the 800 children present in the households, 12.8 percent (or 102 children) were not living with their birth mothers. These figures only reflect a snapshot of the community at one point in time. Many of the children who were not circulating at the time of the survey will likely do so in the future or have already circulated in the past. Of these 102 circulating children, 51 percent were girls and their average age was 9.34 years. There was considerable variation in the relationship between circulating children and host parents. Most commonly (in 28.4 percent of cases) the child was a grandchild of the host mother and father, a sibling of the host mother (18.6 percent), or a niece or nephew of the host mother (14.7 percent).

The Cinderella hypothesis Several challenges make the Cinderella hypothesis, the effect of fosterage on the children involved, difficult to assess. A first challenge pertains to measurement; to measure the impact, it is unclear what would constitute the appropriate counterfactual situation for a circulated child in this context. For example, even if fostered Maasai children were found to be less likely to attend school than nonfostered





children, this does not provide any indication on whether child fostering increases or decreases children’s access to education; perhaps the same circulating children would have been even less likely to attend school had they stayed at home. Comparing schooling outcomes between fostered and nonfostered siblings will not solve this problem either; not only may these siblings differ in many unobserved ways (such as intelligence or discipline) that are impacting outcomes such as school attendance, but even if they did not, then the mere act of fostering one sibling changes the living situation and opportunities for the children remaining. Second, even in the absence of challenges to measuring the impact, there remains the important issue of children’s experiences, interpretation, and agency. For example, would greater school attendance and fewer household chores necessarily be experienced and interpreted by the children themselves as more desirable given the specific contexts faced by some of these fostered children and their (host) families? As the case of Kosen below illustrates, answers to this question can be complex and very context-specific and children often exert their own agency, deciding for themselves what matters. Third, any discussion about the impact of child fostering in this Maasai context is complicated by the fact that decisions around fostering involve a complex set of potentially competing interests. Even if greater school attendance and fewer chores would necessarily be a good thing for the child, poor Maasai mothers and fathers will be weighing the child’s interest against the greater interests for the family, which may include strengthening cross-household connections brought about by child fostering and thus participation in resource-sharing alliances— a crucial long-term family survival strategy in the variable climatic environmental niche in which the Maasai operate. In exploring the impact of child circulation on children’s well-being, we seek to address these challenges by combining survey data on child outcomes with insights generated by more than a dozen interviews with fostered children and their parents/guardians. The in-depth case study of Kosen, a former migrant who moved into two different homes before marrying and settling into his own, is used to illustrate and interpret the limitations of the quantitative findings.

Why foster? Even within the same community, the reasons for fostering are many. In Enkop, the pursuit of education was the most commonly cited reason,



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reported in 34.8 percent of the cases of circulating children (similar for boys and girls). In effect, Enkop has recently experienced dramatic increases in school participation (Archambault, 2007). Among a cohort of young adults aged 16–25 at the time of the survey, less than half (47 percent) had ever attended primary school.3 In contrast, among the young generation aged 6–15 at the time of the survey, two-thirds (66 percent) had ever attended primary school. One of the barriers preventing more children from attending primary school in Enkop is the distance to school. On average, it took a reported 65 minutes to walk from homes to the nearest primary school. This ranged considerably, requiring as little as 3 minutes to walk to school from some homesteads and others as much as 210 minutes. Given the heightened interest in schooling and the long distances to school, it is not surprising that some parents are opting to place their children with relatives and friends living closer to school. The second most commonly cited reason for children living away from their birth mothers was that these children had been “given” (22 percent of cases for boys and 29 percent for girls). Elsewhere, Archambault has written more extensively on the practice of adoption among the Maasai (Archambault, 2010). The practice of giving children is distinguished from the fostering of children by the degree of permanence of the arrangement. Children given are permanently adopted whereas the latter is often a temporary arrangement to join another family. The third most common reason for children to move away from their birth mothers was to assist their host families (16 percent of cases for both boys and girls). Assisting could mean a variety of things, including helping with domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning, caring for small children, fetching water, fetching firewood, washing clothes and utensils, herding livestock, or simply offering companionship to ageing mothers. Among all the circulating children aged 7–18, 36 percent of girls and 29 percent of boys were reported to be assisting with the herding of livestock. It is also common in Maasailand for young brides to have their sisters or other relatives move in with them before they have their own children, to help them transition to married life and to run their household. Helping ageing grandparents is yet another common form of assistance. Although not explicitly reported by parents and children interviewed as an intended objective, our survey data indicates that child circulation in Enkop does result in equalizing household size. The survey identified not only “receiving” households (households in which nonnatal





children were residing) but also “giving” households (households in which children were sent to live with nonnatal parents). Comparing the household size (members sharing the same home with a mother) of giving and receiving households reveals that they are almost identical, 4.5 and 4.3 members, respectively.4 Hence, since without the circulation of any children between these homes, givers would have at least one more member while receivers at least one fewer, the average household size prior to fostering would have been at least 5.5 among givers and not more than 3.3 among receivers. A comparison of the ages of giving and receiving parents further supports the observation that child circulation equalizes household size. Children tend to be given by middle-aged women to younger and older mothers. For example, only 3.9 percent of mothers aged in their early twenties gave out children, whereas 42.4 percent of women in this age category received children. None of the women in the two oldest cohorts, aged in their seventies and eighties, gave out children. This is to be expected since none of these women have children under the age of 19. However, 11.9 percent of women in this age category received children. Thus, children are moving out of larger households and into smaller ones. This equalizing tendency could have positive implications on children’s well-being if it results in less competition over resources and more caretaker attention. Conversely, moving to smaller households may increase work burdens on circulating children (but reducing them of children already present in the smaller receiving household). As the case study of Kosen will illustrate, the reasons for fostering are often complex and dynamic. A single child may be fostered multiple times for any or all of these reasons, sometimes even simultaneously. In light of such complexity, it is worthwhile to assess the implications of children’s movement on their well-being from the perspective of the children involved and in light of the familial context in which such movements occur.

Circulating children at work: A case study Kosen, who at the time of this research was 27 years old, married, with three young children, recounts the times when he lived apart from his birth mother and father. When Kosen was 10 years old he was asked to live with his mother’s co-wife’s daughter, Naserian, and her husband. Kosen’s father had seven wives, a record number in Enkop and a reflection of his significant wealth. Naserian was the daughter of his first wife.



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She had recently married and moved out with her husband to a new home that was approximately 2 hours’ walking distance from their natal home. Her husband had been hired by her father to look after the family livestock from their new home. Anticipating that the work would be too much for the two of them alone, she asked her father if one of his many children could come to help. Kosen happened to be just at the right age to take on the responsibility of such a herd and, unlike most of his many brothers, he was not enrolled full-time in school. Kosen lived with Naserian and her husband for two years. When he first moved there his main responsibility was to help herd the animals. He enjoyed it, he explains, although he confesses that at times it was difficult work, particularly when having to walk very long distances in search of new pastures. In Enkop more generally, comparisons of children living with their natal parents with those circulating reveal little difference in the likelihood that they will be responsible for herding the livestock. Among children aged 7–18 living with their natal parents, 29.1 percent reported to be herding almost daily during the school year. For circulating children this was only slightly higher (32.3 percent). It is not surprising that when differentiated by the reported purpose of the migration, none of the children who moved for schooling were herding on a daily basis, compared to 56.7 percent of those children who moved to help with herding. Such numbers also indicate that the comparison of averages, which shows no difference in herding, is not always very informative without understanding the motive for fostering. Since Kosen was herding his own families’ livestock, he did not expect to be paid for his work. This is generally the case for circulating children in Enkop. Among the 71 circulating children aged 7–18 included in our study, only four children (5.6 percent) reported earning an income. All four were herdsman, presumably tending to others’ livestock. Of the 399 children in the same age category residing with their birth mothers, eight of these children (2 percent) reported an income. Again it should come as no surprise that the likelihood that a circulating child was working for an income depended on the reason for his or her migration. The literature comparing child labor between foster children and those living with their birth parents shows great variation. For example, Ainsworth (1996) finds that foster children in Cote d’Ivoire do more housework and less schooling than other children in the hosting household. Canagarajah and Coulombe (1997) find that children in Ghana who are not born to the head of the household are more likely to engage





in market work than children who are. Yet Zimmerman (2002) found that in South Africa foster children spend no more time on household chores than children living with their biological parents. While such comparisons are informative and important, they do not tell us much about the way children experience the various household and income-generating tasks in which they participate. Kosen’s story, for example, illustrates that fostered children do not necessarily perceive household chores as something negative, as the literature often presumes. During Kosen’s stay, Naserian had given birth to her first child. With no other children in the home, she was alone to do all of the housework. Kosen often volunteered to help Naserian with cooking, washing utensils, and other small chores around the house. She never expected this of him but he offered his help regularly, in large part, he explains, because “she was family and that is what families do.” Some fostered children in Enkop perceive carrying out household chores as a way to better integrate and become part of their new family. Kosen further explains that he was actually quite happy with his herding responsibilities. He felt it was important to be in contact with his father’s animals (some of which would eventually become his own upon marriage) and appreciated having control and responsibility for them. “I could graze the animals on my own, without interruptions, because it was our own property. If it would not be my own, I would constantly need to ask everything,” he commented. He was also especially content about being permitted to continue his schooling in the mornings.

Circulating children at school A number of studies have looked at the impact of child fosterage on educational outcomes in sub-Saharan African communities (Akresh, 2004; Gage, 2005; Lloyd and Blanc, 1996; Zimmerman, 2002). While overall the results are varied, there are a few studies that suggest that fosterage may have a positive effect on children’s likelihood of schooling. For example, in South Africa, Zimmerman (2002) found that children who were fostered to close relatives (over 90 percent of cases) were no less likely to attend school than children who lived with their biological parents. Furthermore, comparing fostered children to their siblings who remained with their biological parents, he found that fostering children reduced their risk of not attending school by 22 percent. The net effect, Zimmerman argued, was that fostering considerably improved



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the school enrollment rates of the children involved. In Burkina Faso, Akresh (2004) found that foster children were as likely as their host siblings to be enrolled in school after fostering, and were 3.6 percent more likely to be enrolled in school than their biological siblings. Similarly, our data suggests that circulating children in Enkop are not any less likely to be schooled than children living with their birth mothers. We found that 66.2 percent of circulating children (aged 7–18) were reported to be attending school at the time of the survey compared with 66.4 percent of children living with their birth mothers; there is no significant difference, even after controlling for age in an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis. When differentiated by reason for circulating, 100 percent of the children who reported to be circulating for education were enrolled in school. Among the rest of circulating children, 40.5 percent were attending school. There was also no significant difference in literacy rates when controlling for age. With respect to school achievement, we also find no significant difference. On average, circulating children aged 7–18 had 2.1 years of education completed compared to 2.3 among children living with their birth mothers. Kosen’s new home was conveniently only a 30-minute walk to his school compared to 2-and-a-half hours from his natal home. However, two years after Kosen’s arrival in Naserian’s home, his father decided to move the livestock to a much farther location that was too far from any primary school. Naserian and her husband moved with the animals but Kosen returned to his natal home because he wanted to continue his education. Seven years later, when Kosen was 17 years old, a devastating drought hit the community of Enkop. His entire family, including all of his mother’s co-wives and their children, abandoned their enkang and migrated with their animals to distant pastures, as far as Tanzania. Kosen, however, was in his final year of primary school and was preparing to sit for the national examination that would determine his eligibility to attend secondary school. He did not want to move away from school and forego his chances of a secondary education; so he arranged to move in with an uncle who worked as a butcher at the local town center. There he would be only 2 hours’ walk to school. His uncle had one wife and several young children. Kosen explains that they were very good people but considerably poorer than Naserian and received little support from Kosen’s father. His uncle and wife struggled to properly care for their own children and for Kosen. In recounting the story, Kosen makes a repeated point of emphasizing that this was a





difficult time for everyone in the community. It was the worst drought Kosen had ever experienced in his lifetime. A consequence of the drought was that on several occasions there was a severe food shortage in the home and not enough to feed Kosen. He recalls this situation with sympathy and understanding. During these episodes of heightened stress, he felt himself an added burden to the family. To relieve some stress on the family he made sure to return to his parents’ home during every school break. In addition, he explained his situation to the school staff and was able to make arrangements to be given an extra portion of lunch. Kosen understood that his uncle’s family had to first cater to their own needs. He did not consider himself mistreated. Mistreatment, he defines, “is when you treat those children different from your own in an unfair way. For example, you give them less food in front of everyone.” Allowing him to stay in their home was already a big favor. He knew he could have been more properly fed if he had followed his parents. This was a sacrifice he was willing to make in order to stay in school. As with educational investments, the literature on the impact of fosterage on children’s health in sub-Saharan Africa shows variable results (Bledsoe et al., 1988; Castle, 1996; Oni, 1995; Sudre et al., 1990). For example, Bledsoe et al. (1988) found that, in rural Sierra Leone, young fostered children under the age of seven were given less medical care and suffered more from malnutrition than their nonfostered host siblings of the same age. Similarly, Oni (1995) describes how foster parents in Nigeria appeared to be less sensitive to foster children’s illness and that treatment of foster children was delayed in comparison to their host siblings. Sudre et al. (1990), on the other hand, observed no difference in nutritional status between fostered and biological children in Swaziland. And Castle (1996) found that nutritional outcomes of fostered children among the Fulani of Mali were strongly associated with the reasons for child fosterage. Kosen’s situation demonstrates the complexity in investigating the health implications of child fosterage. First, children’s connections with multiple households and families may buffer any direct impact of fostering. Nutritional data on Kosen may have found him to be of equal nutritional status to the other children in his foster home (since he was getting an extra meal at school and was eating well when he returned to his parents home during school breaks), but this would mask the fact that he was indeed denied food in the home and treated differently from his uncle’s own children. Second, such measures also do not consider the interpretation of such differences by the children themselves.



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Kosen did not consider himself to be mistreated. In fact, he felt fortunate to be given the chance to live with his uncle’s family and pursue his studies. Food security was a trade-off he was willing to make for his education. Kosen’s story highlights the importance of understanding children’s own priorities, perspectives, and ambitions with respect to their movements when trying to assess the impact of child circulation on children’s well-being. When isolating work, education, or nutrition as separate indicators of well-being, caution must be taken as to what value and weight each is assigned and to the possibility of interlinkages between different aspects of well-being which may result in trade-offs from the perspective of children.

Child circulation and social mobility in Enkop Leinaweaver (2007, 2008) writes on the importance of child circulation in Peru as a means to “move children up” with respect to their socioeconomic status. Children are often moved from poor rural homes to wealthier urban locales and into families that can provide the children with access to new resources. To assess the socioeconomic direction of children’s movements in Enkop, two types of households were compared: those which, at the time of the survey, had placed children in other homes (givers) with those who received children from others (receivers). Looking at different aspects of measures of wealth and other aspects of socioeconomic status in the case of the Maasai in Enkop, it is difficult to discern a clear pattern. In part, this might be explained by the equalizing effect of child circulation on household size discussed earlier. With respect to wealth, the data indicates that givers were more likely to identify themselves as wealthier relative to the rest of the community (14 percent of women interviewed) than receivers (5 percent of women interviewed). Host mothers in giving households were indeed more likely to engage in income-generating activities themselves (20 percent among givers and 10 percent among receivers) than those in receiving households. The husbands in giving households also appeared to have more livestock (husbands of givers had on average 38.9 cows and 44 goats compared to husbands of receivers who had 22.5 cows and 24.1 goats) and reported to have more land than husbands of receivers appeared to have (184 acres compared to 94 acres). However, there are several dimensions of socioeconomic status for which receiving families appeared more endowed than giving families, in particular, host mothers’ livestock numbers and parental literacy. In receiving families,





host mothers were reported to have 18.4 cows and 19.8 goats compared to giving mothers who had 12.4 cows and 17 goats. In another important aspect of socioeconomic status both host mothers and host fathers had much higher levels of literacy than the parents in giving households had. Literacy among host mothers was 24 percent compared to 16 percent among givers. Literacy among host fathers was 52 percent compared to 45 percent among givers. When asked if in Enkop children are moved to wealthier or poorer families, Kosen responded “richness is not really an influence. Even poorer people are generally hospitable. Relatives can often count on each other.” This unclear pattern undoubtedly also reflects the age distribution described above with most givers being concentrated among middle-aged parents who foster children to older (grand) parents and especially young families who tend to be more literate but may have smaller land and livestock sizes. Furthermore, such comparisons assume that the host household is the relevant unit of support for the fostered child. In other words, if the host household is richer than the natal household, the child can be said to have “moved up.” Elsewhere, Archambault (2007) has argued that in Enkop children’s educational opportunities are often determined by other coresidential units such as the polygamous family and the homestead. These larger units constitute important networks of support for foster children. Further, fostered children in Enkop often remain quite closely connected to their natal home despite not residing with them. For example, in the case of Kosen, while he lived with Naserian he continued to see his natal parents regularly. Every 2 or 3 weeks he would go to visit his parents after school and would often spend the night in their home. He would see his father on a weekly basis when he would come to check up on the animals. Kosen’s father was considerably wealthier than Naserian and was committed to supporting them as a young, newly married couple. He employed Naserian’s husband as his herdsman. He moved Kosen to assist them. He even paid for most of their food and expenses and let them buy items from a nearby shop on his credit. Kosen’s financial needs were mostly catered for by his father. In this light, Kosen’s well-being was not determined by the status and wealth of the family he moved into but rather by the family he came from. Such interconnections and complex networks of support among the Maasai complicate analyses that aim to assess impact on the well-being of fostered children based on simple comparisons between giving and receiving households of foster children.



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Despite the fact that Kosen speaks favorably of his own experience as a circulating child, when it comes to his own children he shares another perspective. He insists that he would only send his children to live with others as a last resort and only to improve their access to education. He would, however, much prefer to put his children in boarding school than have them live with others. His disinclination for fostering out his own children does not appear to stem from a fear that his children would be mistreated. He explains, “If the child sees that she or he is treated differently from the other children he may adopt an attitude and look for ways to escape and go back home.” He tells a story of a neighbor whose co-wife had passed away and who subsequently mistreated the co-wife’s children while under her care. “Nowadays,” he explained, “it is said that this woman is visited by tormenting spirits, since she is screaming and howling through the night. They believe this is because she tormented the children.” Stories like this are retold across the community reminding all of the supernatural misfortunes that befall those who abuse children. The threat of such curses and the ability of children to vote with their feet and move out of abusive situations combine to help minimize the risks of mistreatment. Parents in Enkop, as Kosen also points out, are extremely careful about where they send their children. Most parents would not send their children into homes where it was known that someone was abusive or badly behaved. They also consider the presence or absence of other children and the implications that may have on the care and workload given to their children. In the case of fostering out girls, parents also consider the presence of non-kin adolescent boys, which may expose their daughters to sexual risks. Further, parents in Enkop are very concerned that their children be raised in good company. If there are members of the family who may act as negative role models for their children (either because they are not hardworking, or they drink heavily, or they are considered to be disobedient, among other social ills), parents will not want to send their children to such homes. As was the case with Kosen, parents often remain intimately connected to the families where they send children. These days, more than ever before, he explains “they want to keep a watchful eye over their children.” Analyses of child adoption issues in Enkop (Archambault, 2010) reveal the view, very commonly expressed by members of the community, that



(Step) brothers, (step) sisters, and mothers, No further than that: Changes in child circulation


the social circle within which children move has dramatically diminished over time. While in the past, many contend that children could easily be sent to distant relatives, friends, clans-mates, or age-mates, these days the circle of circulation is considered to be quite restrictive. When asked who Kosen would be willing to send his children to, he replied, “Relatives only. [Step] brothers, [step] sisters, and mothers. But not further relatives than that.” “We are not as social these days,” elaborated an elderly mother. Kosen explains that changes in child circulation are due to larger changing notions of family life. Previously the ideal structure of the family was based on polygamy, a communal social way of life together in big manyattas (homesteads) and having several children. Now things are changing because of influences of religion (Christianity), education, and interaction with different tribes. Now you will find everyone in his own home. Polygamy is changing to monogamy. Many wives were a sign of wealth, but now it is different. Concerning child circulations, they prefer now to have their children in boarding school than staying with someone else. All the children used to interact together as one big family in the whole enkang. This way of life promises child circulation. Now, however, families are more separate from each other, meaning their children are not constantly in other peoples houses anymore, making child circulation less likely. Archambault (2007) has discussed how the primary school curriculum in Kenya disproportionately represents “modern” family life as nuclear and biologically connected. Polygamy, having more than one spouse simultaneously, is quite explicitly devalued in the Kenyan curriculum. The Christian church also produces powerful discourses on family life, not only professed by churchgoers and through public evangelism but also embedded in the Kenyan curriculum within the subject of Christian Religious Education (CRE). On the one hand, lessons and sermons on community and family life preach cooperation, connectivity, and assistance (and thus support the idea of moving children around). On the other hand, they also strongly preach monogamy, marital fidelity, and sexual abstinence before marriage, emphasizing the importance of nuclear and biologically connected family life. Land tenure reform, privatizing and subdividing into individual parcels what were once communally managed rangelands, has been one of the principal forces encouraging Maasai to settle into smaller family



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units. Rangeland subdivision has swept across almost all of Maasailand (Galaty, 1994; Kimani and Pickard, 1998; Lesorogol, 2008) and is in its final stages in Enkop. New preliminary survey results indicate that many large families in Enkop have fragmented and migrated to live as single family units on their new private plots of land. The implications that this trend might have on future child circulation patterns remain unclear. For example, the move to private parcels may leave some children even further away from schools, making child circulation for schooling an even more attractive option than before. Thus, land privatization and the ideological shift to nuclear family life may, ironically, increase the likelihood of child circulation in the future.

Conclusion This chapter has described the pervasive practice of child fostering among a Maasai community in Kenya and has illustrated the complexity of assessing the impact of such movements on children’s well-being. In Enkop, the most common reason for fostering out children was to improve their access to education by sending them to families who lived closer to the few schools in the region. Other children were fostered primarily to assist a relative or friend with livestock herding or duties around the house. Interestingly, child fostering in Enkop appeared to have an equalizing effect; larger middle-aged families fostered children to smaller young families or to the elderly. The case study of one such fostered child, Kosen, highlighted the many challenges involved in trying to assess the impact of child fostering on children’s well-being using quantitative outcomes alone. Survey data from Enkop showed little differences between fostered children and nonfostered children with respect to education enrollment, literacy, educational achievement, herding responsibilities, and work for pay. Such average outcomes mask important differences that can be revealed through more detailed qualitative analyses into the family and community context within which a system of child fostering operates. As Kosen’s case study makes clear, the major challenge lies in interpreting what constitutes children’s well-being. Children’s own perspectives are extremely valuable in helping to define this. In Kosen’s first fosterage home, he herded livestock and helped with domestic chores. However, he found both activities empowering and exerted considerable agency. Herding the livestock allowed him to retain control over his future assets while helping with household chores made him feel comfortable and at home. Given the difficult circumstances of many





families, fostering may also necessitate important, and sometimes difficult, trade-offs. For example, in Kosen’s second move, he was willing to sacrifice proper nourishment in his foster home for the opportunity to complete primary school in the same school he had long attended. A second major challenge in determining the impact of child fostering on children’s well-being is to decide on the unit of analysis that best exemplifies the support environment of children when they have moved. Following conventional quantitative approaches, this chapter compared the households of “givers” with those of “receivers” to determine whether children were moved into higher or lower socioeconomic environments. The results were mixed with different socioeconomic indicators moving in different directions. Kosen’s case further illustrates the limitations of the assumption that the fostering household determines the environment of well-being of fostered children. During both Kosen’s first and second move he was almost fully supported by his natal home and he was not dependent on the resources of the fostering family. A final lesson from Kosen is that, depending on the context within which fostering takes place, children may exert considerable agency in the fostering, not only influencing the fosterage decisions themselves— when, for how long, and to which family—but also shaping the experience itself.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

All proper names of places and people are pseudonyms. Children are defined as 18-years-old and younger at the time of the survey. Ever attended is defined as having completed at least 1 year of primary school. This average number of household members does not include husbands, since in polygamous situations husbands live across multiple households and are not always reported present in the rosters of some wives.

Bibliography A. Adepoju (2005) “Review of Research and Data on Human Trafficking in SubSaharan Africa”, International Migration, 43(1/2): 75–98. M. Ainsworth (1996) “Economic Aspects of Child Fostering in Cote d’Ivoire” in T. P. Schultz (ed.) Research in Population Economics, Vol. 8 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press), 25–62. R. Akresh (2004) “Adjusting Household Structure: School Enrolment Impacts of Child Fostering in Burkino Faso” Yale Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper No. 897 (New Haven, CT: Economic Growth Center, Yale University). E. Alber (2003) “Denying Biological Parenthood: Fosterage in Northern Benin”, Ethnos, 68(4): 487–506.



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C. Archambault (2010) “Fixing Families of Mobile Children: Recreating Kinship and Belonging among Maasai Adoptees in Kenya”, Special Issue of Childhood: A Journal of Global Child Research, 17(2). C. Archambault (2007) “School Is the Song of the Day”: Education and Social Change in Maasai Society, PhD Dissertation (Brown University, Providence, RI). P. Bennell (2005) “The Impact of the AIDS Epidemic on the Schooling of Orphans and other Directly Affected Children in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Journal of Development Studies, 41(3): 467–488. C. Bledsoe (1990) “ ‘No Success without Struggle’: Social Mobility and Hardship for Foster Children in Sierra Leone”, Man, 25(1): 70–88. C. Bledsoe and A. Brandon (1992) “Child Fosterage and Child Mortality in SubSaharan Africa: Some Preliminary Questions and Answers” in E. van de Walle, G. Pison, and M. Sala-Diakanda (eds) Mortality and Society in Sub-Saharan Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 279–302. C. Bledsoe, D. C. Ewbank, and U. Isiugo-Abanihe (1988) “The Effect of Child Fostering on Feeding Practices and Access to Health Services in Rural Sierra Leone”, Social Science and Medicine, 27(6): 627–636. C. Bledsoe and U. Isiugo-Abanihe (1989) “Strategies of Child-Fosterage among Mende Grannies in Sierra Leone” in R. J. Lesthaeghe (ed.) Reproduction and Social Organization in Sub-Saharan Africa (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), 442–474. S. Canagarajah and H. Coulombe (1997) “Child Labor and Schooling in Ghana”, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 1844. (Washington DC: The World Bank). S. E. Castle (1996) “Child Fostering and Children’s Nutritional Outcomes in Rural Mali”, Social Science and Medicine, 40(5): 679–693. A. Gage (2005) “The Interrelationship between Fosterage, Schooling, and Children’s Labor Force Participation in Ghana”, Population Research and Policy Review, 24: 431–466. J. G. Galaty (1994) “Ha(l)ving Land in Common: The Subdivision of Maasai Group Ranches in Kenya”, Nomadic Peoples, 34/35: 109–121. E. Goody (1982) Parenthood and Social Reproduction: Fostering and Occupational Roles in West Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). A. C. F. Hollis (1905) Masai Grammar (Oxford: Clarendon Press). K. Kimani and J. Pickard (1998) “Recent Trends and Implications of Group Ranch Sub-Division and Fragmentation in Kajiado Dostrict, Kenya”, The Geographical Journal, 164(2): 202–213. J. Leinaweaver (2007) “On Moving Children: The Social Implications of Andean Child Circulation”, American Ethnologist, 34(1): 163–180. J. Leinaweaver (2008) The Circulation of Children: Adoption, Kinship, and Morality in Andean Peru (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). C. Lesorogol (2008) Contesting the Commons: Privatizing Pastoral Lands in Kenya (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press). B. C. Lloyd and A. K. Blanc (1996) “Children’s Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Fathers, Mothers and, Others”, Population and Development Review, 22(2): 265–298. J. B. Oni (1995) “Fostered Children’s Perception of their Health Care and Illness Treatment in Ekiti Yoruba Households, Nigeria”, Health Transition Review, 5: 21–34.





H. Page (1989) “Childrearing versus Childbearing: Co-residence of Mother and Child in Sub-Saharan Africa” in R. J. Lestaeghe (ed.) Reproduction and Social Organisation in Sub-Saharan Africa (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), 401–441. R. Pennington (1991) “Child Fostering as a Reproductive Strategy among Southern African Pastoralists”, Ethnology and Sociobiology, 12: 83–104. B. K. Shell-Duncan (1994) “Child Fostering among Nomadic Turkana Pastoralists: Demographic and Health Consequences” in E. Fratkin, K. Galvin, and E. Abella Roth (eds) African Pastoralist Systems: An Integrated Approach (London: Boulder), 147–164. P. Sudre, M. Serdula, N. Binkin, N. Staehling, and M. Kramer (1990) “Child Fostering, Health and Nutritional Status: The Experience of Swaziland”, Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 24(3): 181–188. A. Talle (2004) “Adoption Practices among the Pastoral Maasai of East Africa: Enacting Fertility” in F. Bowie (ed.) Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption (London: Routledge), 64–78. H. Verhoef and G. Morelli (2007) “ ‘A Child Is a Child’: Fostering Experiences in Northwestern Cameroon”, Ethos, 35(1): 33–64. C. Watters (2008) Refugee Children: Towards the Next Horizon (London: Routledge). M. G. Wessells (2006) Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press). A. Whitehead and I. Hashim (2005) Children and Migration. Background Report for DFID. F. J. Zimmerman (2002) “Cinderella Goes to School: The Effects of Child Fostering on School Enrolment in South Africa”, The Journal of Human Resources, 38(3): 557–590.



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Searching for New Opportunities: Working and Learning in a New Land



Part IV




Migrating with Honor: Sites of Agency and Power in Child Labor Migration in Bangladesh Karin Heissler

Background and introduction This chapter focuses on “choice” in child labor migration as manifestations of agency and power, albeit constrained. As Giddens (1979: 72) writes, “all social actors, no matter how lowly, have some degree of penetration of the social forms which oppress them.” Yet, the global policy agenda on children in international migration and development, especially among child rights advocates, is largely responsible for creating and encouraging an image that children working away from their families and homes did not have any choice due to their parents’ poverty, harmful social practices, or the breakdown of societal values (O’Connell Davidson and Farrow, 2007; Whitehead et al., 2005). These views persist because traditional approaches to understanding social and economic life see children as dependents incapable of making rational choices (Coleman, 1990). A narrow and homogenous “minority” (or “developed”) worldview “sentimentalizes” childhood (Zelizer, 1994) and constructs poor working children in the “majority” world (or developing countries) as victims in need of assistance (Boyden et al., 1998). In most migration studies, children have either been overlooked or been considered passive appendages of their parents or guardians (Whitehead and Hashim, 2005). Child migration is often treated as an aberration or is conceptualized as forced migration and trafficking (O’Connell Davidson and Farrow, 2007). Many of these assumptions about childhood and children’s roles in migration have been disputed. Research undertaken in a variety of contexts, and across a range of disciplines, shows children, even very young ones, to be social and economic actors (Boyden and Levison, 2000; 209



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Agency and Power in Child Labor Migration in Bangladesh

Setting the context The situation in Bangladesh provides a good example of how these normative views about social and economic life shape research, policy, and programmatic approaches to “poor” children. Foreign press and some of the development literature portray Bangladesh as a poverty-stricken country that is vulnerable to natural disasters. Eighty percent of the poor reside in rural areas and almost half of the population lives below the poverty line (Sen and Hulme, 2006: 3). The country is also associated with gender discrimination and violence against women. As Kabeer (2001: viii) writes, Bangladesh has been widely presented in the development literature as “one of the least negotiable patriarchies in the world.” Women and girls are perceived as being submissive to their fathers and husbands and confined within and unable to engage in work outside their homes in order to maintain Islamic norms of purdah (female seclusion). The approach to children in research, policy-making, and programming mirrors the treatment of women as being significantly disadvantaged across all aspects of their lives. Most of the focus is on hazardous work, child victims of violence and abuse, and girls and boys who are outside the protective care of their families (Blanchet, 2003; Conticini and Hulme, 2006). The popular discourse on child labor draws attention to exploitative conditions that interfere with schooling and adversely impact children’s development (Lawson, 2003). According to the Bangladesh National Child Labour Survey, approximately 14 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 14 work (BBS, 2003). Yet, if unpaid domestic services in their own households were included in this definition of “economic activity,” the figure would increase tremendously. By the time they are 17 years old, almost all children work. There exists an urban bias towards research on child labor (Panelli et al., 2007); however, most working children in Bangladesh are found in rural areas, and more than half of them are employed in agriculture (BBS, 2003). Most studies on child labor focus on the nature and conditions of work. Yet, as Khair (2005) points out, none captures the dynamics of their migration for work. This is interesting because migration



James and Prout, 1997; Piaget, 1970). Empirical research has identified children’s migration as a strategy employed to strengthen kinship ties (Hashim, 2005) and to search for autonomy and adventure (Thorsen, 2007), or as a rite of passage (Punch, 2007). Nevertheless, traditional views about children as individuals lacking agency persist.

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is intrinsically linked to the country’s history (Siddiqui, 2003), and internal rural–urban migration is most prevalent, especially among the poor who rely on it for their livelihoods (Afsar, 2003). No reliable data exist on the number of children working outside their homes (Khair, 2005). This is despite the fact that migrants are generally recognized as being young people (Toufique and Turton, 2002). Reflecting the minority worldview that children are incapable of choosing to migrate, independent child migrants are rarely captured in studies and, when they are, the treatment they receive is mixed. For example, boys’ migration has been included under adult male migration and perceived as an established rite of passage involving choice (Kuhn, 2001). In contrast, female labor migration has either been overlooked, or the focus has been on exploitation (Kabeer, 2001: x). This is despite the fact that it is an established tradition for women and girls to migrate for marriage and domestic work and, more recently, for garment work (Rozario, 2002). Accurate figures are hard to come by, however, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are 300,000 child domestic workers in Dhaka (ILO, 2005a). Most of them are migrant girls (Blanchet, 1996). Moreover, of the female labor force employed in the export-oriented garment industry, 90 percent are under 30 years old and most are rural migrants (Afsar, 2003). Consistent with the view of children as vulnerable, much attention on girls and boys living and working outside their homes has been placed on trafficking. Although it cites no numbers, the US Department of State (2008) contends that in Bangladesh children are trafficked internally and across borders for various purposes, including exploitative work. The tendency in research to focus on exploited and trafficked children draws attention to dysfunctional households and poverty which “force” children to leave their households and leave them with very little “choice” but escape. This distorts understandings of children’s migration for work. The broader context, in particular, the interaction of global and local factors that create both a demand for and supply of working children, is often overlooked. Yet, it is necessary to understand these processes in order to understand choice in child labor migration.

Methodology and sample This chapter draws on ethnographic fieldwork I carried out on the factors shaping “choice” in child labor migration from four villages in Madhupur upazila (or sub-district) to other villages and industrial



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areas in and around Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, between 2006 and 2008. Madhupur is situated approximately 160 km northwest of Dhaka. Travel in-and-out is only by road, primarily by bus. It has a sizable Hindu and Christian population; however, Islam is the majority religion. Although the district to which Madhupur belongs is wealthier than many other districts in the country (Sen and Hulme, 2006), there is still significant poverty. Almost 64 percent of households in rural Madhupur own agricultural land (BBS, 2007: 39). However, according to the study participants, the size of land holdings varies tremendously. Child migrants disproportionately come from households with small or no holdings. In addition, although over the past 20 years there has been a sharp increase in literacy rates, the sub-district remains below national levels, and many children and young people between 5 and 24 years of age are not in school (BBS, 2007). In Madhupur, agriculture currently constitutes the main source of income, in particular, rice and fruit cultivation, livestock, forestry, and fishery (BBS, 2007). Yet, reflecting the national trend, villagers are increasingly looking beyond agriculture for sources of income. Unlike other parts of the country, Madhupur is an area that has not been traditionally associated with out-migration, neither international nor internal. Accordingly, I was able to explore the processes by which new practices were being created. The migration of children less than 18 years of age for work is one such phenomenon. My research was undertaken in both origin and destination settings. My sample comprised 58 migrant children (35 girls and 23 boys). They were identified using purposive and snowball sampling (Bernard, 2006). All of them left their home village for another location within the country for work at least once. None migrated with their parents. The methods involved a combination of observation, in depth face-to-face discussions with individual and groups of migrant working children, and the collection of life histories. To better understand the broad context in which migration took place, I also met regularly with their parents, siblings, friends, peers, and neighbors. In total, I interviewed 73 family members individually and in groups. The precise age of the participants was difficult to determine because most births are not registered and age is instead more commonly marked by “life stages” or culturally and biologically determined behaviors and qualities (Aziz and Maloney, 1985). According to my estimates, the age at first migration varied between 7 and 18 years old. As of January 2008, however, their ages ranged between 9 and 25 years old.



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Reflecting the highly gendered dimension of labor markets in Bangladesh (Rahman, 2007), the majority of migrant girls in this study were employed either as domestic workers in private households or in export-oriented garment factories. A number of girls working in garment factories had previously been employed as domestic workers. Only one girl was employed outside these two professions; she worked in a thread factory. In contrast to the females, migrant boys were engaged in a greater diversity of jobs. These included work as shop assistants; in factories making shoes, garments, or chicken feed; in construction; making bricks; painting trucks; making mattresses; as security guard, and as domestic worker.

Children’s migration at the crossroads of global and local factors Spending time with children and their families, I observed that in Madhupur, work is central to childhood. However, much of it is done within the child’s own household and does not involve migration. When they are older and physically strong, most boys engage in local paid work such as driving a cycle van or rickshaw, seasonal brick-making or agricultural contract labor. In contrast, girls, as they get older, take on increasingly skilled, physically challenging, and time-consuming work in and for their own households. This gendered and aged division of labor is seen as a normal and accepted part of childhood in Bangladesh (Cain, 1977). It is also consistent with research findings on rural children in other parts of the world (Nieuwenhuys, 1994; Punch, 2001). Nevertheless, some children migrate for work. This is because they and the households they belong to are more directly impacted by ongoing transitions brought about by global and local factors. Schooling and its link to migration Bangladesh is on track for meeting the Millennium Development Goals of achieving universal primary education and promoting gender equality (Government of Bangladesh, 2005). However, many children still do not attend school, including in Madhupur (BBS, 2007). Most parents in this study had little or no prior experience with formal schooling, but recent emphasis on education had created new aspirations of and for children for high status work, or chakri. Chakri is a term used to describe salaried work entered into through a formal contract. It connotes work that has status because it requires literacy and numeracy. For the children in my study, very little chakri is available unless they



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come from wealthy households and progress in school at least to the completion of secondary school. Attaining this level is out of reach for most of the children I interacted with because of their parents’ inability to afford tuition, examination fees, books, and uniforms. Nevertheless, advocacy and investments in education have affected the aspirations of children and parents. For some girls and boys, it was an important factor in their migration for work. This illustrates how global pressures play out at the local level. For example, I found that two boys who had done well in secondary school migrated for employment because they were ashamed to do the locally available work. Much of the development literature on eradicating child labor emphasizes education as a key part of any solution (ILO, 2005b). Yet, my research shows that when education is advocated as the key means by which to secure a decent job in a context where such employment does not exist, global and national level efforts to achieve education for all are unlikely to succeed.

Rural livelihoods and the “need” for migration Rural livelihoods are changing in Bangladesh, and this also affects child labor migration. Nationwide, the number of landless households is declining, however, functional landlessness, which means having less than 0.2 hectares of land, is increasing (Toufique and Turton, 2002: 17). In addition to decreasing availability of arable land resulting from climate change (IBRD and World Bank, 2008), the size of plots has diminished due to “endemic land conflicts” (Islam, 2002: 99). These include the lodging of “false” land claims related to feuds and corruption, which leads to selling or mortgaging land. Madhupur is affected by all of these factors. Furthermore, many households are no longer able to exclusively rely on their land to meet all their consumption needs. New work opportunities, including “low” skilled employment, have been created in rural areas as electricity becomes increasingly available, physical infrastructure (including roads) develop, and marketing and commercial sectors grow (Toufique and Turton, 2002). In Madhupur such employment opportunities exist. However, they are primarily occupied by males, including adolescent boys. This does not mean that males will engage in any type of local work. For example, the store owners in one of my field sites all come from that village, but the junior staff commutes from elsewhere. This is because locals are embarrassed to be seen by their neighbors and friends working in a shop, and would prefer to do the



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same work in another place where they are not known and do not feel ashamed. In contrast to paid employment opportunities for boys and men, waged employment opportunities for poor girls and women are few and are associated with “low” status and shame. They included domestic work in wealthier households and, for older women, road repair or work in a rice mill. I learned that notions of “good” and “bad” work are associated with gender, life stage, and class, and they become progressively strict with age. Households with a shortage of males apply a less strict interpretation of what constitutes “low” status work. According to national data, 15–17 percent of rural households are female-headed, and this figure increases to 25 percent among the landless (Kabeer, 2001: 61–62). In Madhupur there are a number of such households. This is because the father either died or remarried and did not provide support for the family; the father was elderly or ill and unable to work; or the household included too few sons or the boys were too young to do paid work. Because there are fewer paid employment opportunities for females in rural areas and most are considered socially unacceptable, female-headed households experience higher rates of economic hardship. They also have disproportionate numbers of child migrants. In addition to climate change and transition in rural Bangladesh that shows how global and local factors intersect and shape people’s lives, marriage practices also play a role in child labor migration, especially among girls.

“New” marriage practices Although marriage of girls before the age of 18 is illegal according to the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1980, it is widely practiced throughout the country, including in Madhupur. Men, in contrast, marry later, on average at 25 years old (Amin et al., 2006). Associated with marriage is the payment of dowry which usually takes the form of cash and occasionally gifts for the groom and his family. The amounts demanded reflect the girl’s value in the marriage market. Several factors influence the value: her appearance, age, education level, and the socio-economic position of the household. The dowry practice emerged in the 1950s with the transition of former East Bengal from its colonial dependence on Britain and precapitalist relations in agriculture to incorporation into “capitalist world” relationships (Lindenbaum, 1981: 396). This economic transition contributed to the “economic devaluation of women” that was secured with the



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shift in the direction of marriage payments that previously favored the bride and her family to one that benefitted the groom and his family (Kabeer, 2001: 60). The practice first emerged among wealthy urban families; however, it has since spread to all sectors of the population, including the poorest rural households and, overall, the amounts are increasing (Amin et al., 2006). In Madhupur, dowry usually takes the form of cash. It is not uncommon for parents to pay a portion of the dowry on marriage, with the intention of paying the balance later. Among the poorest, dowry severely reduces their assets, so a variety of strategies are employed to meet these obligations, including mortgaging land and taking out loans. Migration is another strategy, and many of the girls I met had migrated for work to earn dowry money. As 19-year-old Zafrin1 explained to me, “Dowry is society’s rule” so to earn and save for it was the main reason why she left home. Households with little or no land, with many girls, with female heads or elderly or ill fathers unable to work are more acutely sensitive to the above-mentioned transitions. Household vulnerability is an important factor that shapes—at the community level—child labor migration. However, intrahousehold factors and processes are central to understanding which children within households migrate for work.

Intrahousehold dynamics Within the household, the factors that shape choice are the interrelated dimensions of birth order, and sibling and household composition (Punch, 2001). Therefore, children’s decisions are highly constrained not only by the extra-household factors traced above, but also by the demographic composition of the household. Many girls told me that they migrated for work because they did not have elder brothers. In addition to the importance of understanding which children leave their households, it is also important to know when. The composition of households is not static: cyclical changes in size and composition are brought about by births, marriages, and deaths of family members (Aziz, 1979). Roles and responsibilities of members therefore change according to the domestic cycle of the household and the individual. Evidence shows that children’s choices adapt to shifts within the household that also affect its resources. For example, 25-yearold Beauty told me that her family used to be very poor, so as the eldest child she left the household to work. Beauty’s family was subsequently able to buy land because of her remittance earnings. Now that her family



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owns land and is more financially secure, the roles and responsibilities of each of the children have shifted. Beauty’s younger sister has neither an interest nor compelling reason to work outside the home. Neighbors explain that she does not work because she is “rich.” This is a profound contrast to Beauty’s experience in the same household, yet many years earlier when they were “poor.” For girls, the extra- and intrahousehold factors that shape the decision to migrate for work lead to a close engagement with notions of purdah and associated gendered norms and rules.

Purdah and the system of honor and shame In Bangladesh, female labor migration has been viewed as a marginal activity because of its association with violations of purdah. Purdah is widely seen as an Islamic institution, but in Bangladesh it is practiced by women of different religious groups (Rozario, 2002). There has also been a tendency to consider the practice as static which has implications for understanding women’s and girls’ work and their labor migration. For example, Kabeer (2001: 67) finds that, for a long time, officials and researchers did not conceive of the possibility of female engagement in paid employment because “of the perceived inflexibility and pervasiveness of patriarchal constraint.” This perception allegedly kept women spatially confined within the precincts of the home and therefore socially unable and unwilling to travel or migrate for work. As explored above, these biases have been exaggerated in research on migrant children. Associated with purdah are the ideologies of honor and shame which refer to the behavior of females and males (Rozario, 2002). In Madhupur, no decision, including those about migration, type of work, and workplace setting, is made without first considering what is “good” and “honorable.” This illustrates how global factors affect, rather than supplant, local practices. I asked respondents what being “good” meant and was told that it represented “honor.” Behaving “badly” was described as representing “shame,” not only to the individual’s reputation, but also to the reputation of the household. Examples of “good” included: listening to and obeying parents; respecting elders, and; if working, giving your income to your parents. Parents must take care of their children, provide them with food and clothes, ensure their education, and arrange their daughters’ marriages. From around puberty, not mixing with members of the opposite gender (observing purdah) was highlighted as a key element of honor. Mobility was also revealed as an important theme



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related to being “good.” Especially around puberty, not moving far around or outside the village (for girls) and far outside and late at night (for boys) were aspects reflecting cultural constructions of being “good.” This suggests that there are gendered tensions around choice in child labor migration. The meanings of honor varied by village and also according to the principles of gender (Mayall, 2003) and generation (Alanen, 2003), which concern one’s position in the community. For example, being female (of any age) implied a stricter interpretation of honor than for males (of any age). Yet, both older men and women, but particularly men, had the greatest scope for flexibility in interpreting “honor” and “shame.” Similarly, the principles define roles within households, constituting an “intergenerational contract” between members where claims and responsibilities are backed by the rules of wider society (Kabeer, 2001: 25). The characteristics described above show that honor has individual and collective dimensions (Dodd, 1973: 43) that shape intrahousehold decision-making. My research indicates that children, like other household members, make decisions knowing that the honor of the household can also be affected. Their acute awareness of honor, and their strong attachment and adherence to upholding it, shows a collective dimension to agency. Class is another dimension of honor; being wealthier is associated with having greater restrictions than if one is poorer. Being a girl compounds these limitations even further. For example, when I last met 18-year-old Nargis, she was no longer engaged in paid work; she was doing domestic work at home and waiting for her marriage to be arranged. Nargis is also “middle class,” which affected her ability to engage more fully in social and economic life and remain honorable: Honor isn’t as hard to violate if you are poorer and female. It is more difficult for wealthier people to maintain honor than for poor people. I belong to the category of being wealthier so there are more restrictions on what I can do . . . But, if you are wealthier, you have fewer choices, especially if you are a girl . . . If we work everyone will say ‘They [Nargis’ family] have everything but they still work’. Nargis’ statement not only illustrates the classed and gendered dimensions of honor, but also suggests that it is policed. This has important implications for understanding the processes around child labor migration.



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At the extreme, adherence to honor and punishment for behaving “shamefully” is policed through arbitration within an institution known as the salish. The salish is an informal village court comprising wealthy and respected elders (primarily men) who meet to mediate and settle disputes and who pass judgment on those who do not conform to socially acceptable behaviors (Rahman Khan, 2001). The traditional conceptualization of the salish is, however, changing. It is no longer dominated by the rich and may in fact be a progressive instrument for local justice (Islam, 2002). Yet, I found that everyday policing of honor is done by gossips. Gossip “can refer to any informal talk about someone who is not present, including rumor, slander, or simply the exchange of information” (Eder and Enke, 1991: 494). As discussions with respondents revealed, it is seen as idle talk that is disapproved of, but everyone acknowledges engaging in it. Gossips monitor the behaviors that are seen as appropriate for one’s gender, position within the life course, and class according to the characteristics of “honor” described above. Gossip functions as a powerful means of social control: it polices honor and shame, and ensures conformity of community members to the norms. Gender is increasingly regulated as children develop, especially girls. I found that the policing of honor and shame by gossips was extremely important in structuring children’s migration and employment opportunities. The consequences of being “talked about” appeared more serious and of longer-term consequence for girls than boys. Migrant girls were considered less attractive as marital partners, and they had to pay higher dowry, which is ironic given that most of them had migrated with the specific objective of earning for their dowry. Of the girls who subsequently married, most had not saved as much as they had hoped for and ended up marrying less desirable grooms who required smaller dowry payments. The adverse effects continued through marriage: many girls endured poor treatment from their in-laws and husbands because they had previously worked outside the home. Many girls told me, and I observed, that they tried to keep hidden or underplayed their work experiences. Rozario (2002) writes that the codes of honor and shame refer to the behavior of both men and women, but that in practice, honor is seen more as men’s responsibility and shame as women’s. This may be misleading, however, as it suggests that women cannot influence the



Policing “honor”


codes. This is similar to Kabeer’s (2001) observation that poor women in Bangladesh have been presented as powerless. While gossip is not often seen as a topic for serious scholarly attention (Wickham, 1998), my data show that married older women—including “poor” and rural women— wield tremendous power in society, policing honor through gossip. Older women are the most powerful gossips because young girls and boys cannot challenge them since they have to respect elders. Women, therefore, play an active role in shaping social and economic life. My research suggests that, even among poor children, and especially among girls, choosing to migrate for work is a tension-laden process because it involves weighing the relative costs of maintaining honor and avoiding or minimizing shame. For example, girls’ migration for work and their choice of work is seen in the wider community as compromising honor, yet it upholds their obligations to the household. It may also serve longer term needs, including earning dowry money. Thus, child labor migration is also related to preserving the household’s standing in the community. In contrast, boys’ migration for work may serve as a means to preserve or enhance their honor by avoiding the embarrassment of doing “low” status work at home. There is a tendency to view labor markets as guided by material-driven aspirations and globalization. However, my research shows instead how global factors interact with local processes. With particular constraints on women and adolescent girls, the labor market is deeply embedded in social relations.

Migration and belonging When girls and boys are physically away from the village and the entrenched system of honor policed by gossip, one might assume that a space is created where one might act without fear of being the subject of gossip. Indeed, there is space for more individual expressions of honor and shame. As Salmon (a 15-year-old migrant boy) told me, “It is easier in the city because no one knows you, but in the village everyone knows who you are.” However, this space is extremely narrow. While children may be more anonymous in another setting and some expressed that they felt less restricted in what they could do and say, most migrant girls and boys indicated that they were still bound to adhere to honor. Afsar (2002: 91) comments that although “self-motivation” and “anonymity” are sometimes associated with migrant life, in Bangladesh poor migrants value families over self-interest. So, rather than having a more carefree



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life when they were away from home, migrant children continued to self-police their actions. Migration is thus indicative of belonging to households and the community rather than separation and independence. Not only do the people of rural villages migrate, but also the features of rural village life are transplanted to urban settings, and urban areas also have “gossips.” For example, Fatema (a 19-year-old) explained to me that when she worked in Dhaka in garments, . . . freedom was impossible because people from the region where I am from live in Dhaka so I am not completely unknown . . . If people, even strangers, see me do something shameful they would say that living in Dhaka has made me bad. Also, when you move to Dhaka, you get to know people so then you do become known and those people too can talk about you. Migration therefore reflects and perpetuates the honor system. In addition, although the system of honor in urban areas is slightly different from the one that exists in the village, it is still policed, albeit with more flexibility. Nevertheless, as explored in the next section, among migrant girls in particular, it appears that in order to carry out a decision to migrate for work that upholds their honor, they must redefine the meanings of honor and shame.

Sites of agency and power Thus far, my findings illustrate how closely villagers abide by notions of honor and shame even if it brings about adverse economic consequences. In a number of majority world settings it has been found that children play key economic and social roles and facilitate intraand interhousehold relations that cannot be socially fulfilled by adults because it would bring shame or dishonor upon them (Nieuwenhuys, 1994; Schildkrout, 1978). Yet, findings from my and others’ research (Hashim, 2005; Punch, 2007) show that children are also embedded in social relations, including the honor system, from young and gendered thresholds in the life course. Nevertheless, it is possible for girls and boys to create spaces where they can question and bend the rules, and this is done on a daily basis. For example, I was trying to find a private place to speak to Vanessa (a 19-year-old), who had spent a lot of time working outside her village. We decided to go to a secluded place in a village far



Karin Heissler


away. A neighbor asked where we were heading and Vanessa, without any hesitation, told her the name of a village close by. She explained to me, “If we go far away people will talk more so that is why I lied. Sometimes you just have to.” These contestations are not, however, just “spaces” that individuals open for themselves. As explored above, ongoing social and economic changes brought about through global and local processes, such as expansions in schooling, changes in land ownership and livelihoods, and new marriage practices, lead to tensions with the system of honor and shame. The ways in which migrant working children engage with the meanings, including the gossips that police honor, shows complexity in forms of power and power relations. Questioning and re-interpreting the norms As mentioned above, associated with rigid interpretations of purdah, an image has been perpetuated of Bangladesh as a conservative country where hierarchical relationships between the sexes are maintained through static interpretations of gendered roles and relations in Islam. Yet, migrant working girls and their parents challenge and, at times, contest prevailing interpretations of religious tenets. For example, Vanessa told me, “God said girls should keep purdah but he didn’t say they should live in poverty without food and suffer. . . .” Similarly, Sohel, the father of two girls working in a garment factory explained to me that the view that girls should not work outside the home is outdated and, in any event, is not considered forbidden or shameful in Islam. While the agency of children is both constrained and facilitated by the system of honor and shame, the examples above show that child migrants and their parents may push the boundaries of interpretations to serve their own purposes. Not only do girls and their parents contest and re-interpret the meanings, but they also do respond to them in ways that show power at an interpersonal and individual level. Jealousy, defiance, policing others, and “doing nothing” Children and adults who challenge or who redefine the elements of honor are likely to invite envy from neighbors, not just condemnation. Jealousy is a powerful factor in gossip and a means by which those “talked about” for migrating for work challenge the gossips. They use it against their peers and elders to serve their own purposes, including for self-protection. Several former migrant working girls and a mother told me they felt strongly that the reason why people say girls who work



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outside are karap (bad) is because they are jealous, do not themselves have an income source and feel insecure. Migrant working girls also express defiance, albeit timid because they do not say it openly to gossips or their elders as they are mindful of the limits that exist due to their age and gender. Vanessa, for instance, acknowledged that she is talked about, but was quick to point out her differences from other migrant girls who she thinks are more “shameful.” This shows that rather than being an “all or nothing” concept, honor is relational (Zeid, 1965). It also confirms that power may also be asymmetrical and not zero-sum (Giddens, 1979). This is because even subordinate actors such as Vanessa, who is the subject of gossip for having worked outside, display power over someone else by describing her behavior and actions as less shameful. Power is evident not only in accusing others of jealousy, displaying defiance and policing others’ actions, but also by choosing not to respond to gossip. Girls explain that doing so would make things worse so that “doing nothing” helps keep intact whatever honor still exists. Yet, “doing nothing” can also have adverse economic consequences that girls are willing to accept in order to retain their honor. As Vanessa explained, although she really wants to leave her village again for work, and has an offer to return to her previous employer, she is too ashamed to go back because she had promised the woman she would return, but did not keep her word. Maintaining honor therefore overrides what might otherwise be seen from the outside to be economic imperatives. Power can therefore be evident in remaining silent: so in abiding by the rules and in appearing to not react, it is still possible to demonstrate agency. Scott (1985: 29) describes everyday forms of resistance of supposedly “powerless” peasants that include inter alia “feigned innocence,” “slander,” and “false compliance.” All of these strategies were used by girls to protect themselves from gossip. Yet, while various expressions of power emerge, as explored below, challenging notions of honor and shame has its limits.

Thresholds and power The passage of time eases the adverse consequences of gossip as many people forget or move onto other current topics of interest. Also, an established precedent in girls’ labor migration may offer some protection. When I mentioned that “some people say it is bad if girls migrate for work,” one girl responded, “In our area no one says anything because



Karin Heissler


from there lots of girls work in Dhaka. . . .” Yet there are limits and crossing them is punished: if you stay away too long or make the “wrong” decisions you may no longer be considered a member of the community. The decisions made by Sadia (a 21-year-old) and Saira (a 19-year-old) when they were working in Dhaka have made it socially impossible for them to return to their village. While employed in garments, and against their parents’ will, both sisters married men whom they met while in the city. Subsequently, Saira was tricked into divorcing her husband, and Sadia’s husband left her and remarried. Their younger sister Poppy (a 16-year-old) explained to me why return to the village was impossible and what would happen if they did: Everyone will say the two girls are married but none of them can live with their husband. Everybody will say that it is my sisters’ fault [that they are now single]. Also, we don’t have our own land. We have to stay on others’ land that is why we have to listen to what other people say [author’s emphasis]. In this particular case, there is no suggestion of a split from their immediate family (with whom they are very close), only from their community. Moreover, because their parents are dependent on others, the girls appear more beholden to abide by the system of honor and shame. In contrast to the girls, from the migrant boys and young men I got to know, it appeared that they have fewer policed boundaries in the community and household: Several years ago, when Amirul [25 years old] was working outside his village, he met and married a young woman who was working in garments. They had a daughter and returned to the village where he found work. Amirul is not the focus of gossip, nor was he socially prohibited from returning home. Rather, all criticism is directed at his wife because she worked in garments, she is not from the area, and she has spent a long time in the city so is considered “bad.” Therefore, while flexibility exists in interpreting “honor,” there is a limit, notably for girls. Whereas boys appear more likely to get away with disregarding local notions of honor and shame while living and working outside, for girls there appears to be less leniency which they seem to acknowledge and accept. Researching child labor migration also



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reveals a more insidious aspect of power that sets migrant working girls and boys against each other.

One might assume that migrant working girls and boys would find solidarity with each other because of having made similar decisions to migrate for work. Yet, the majority of them expressed strong mutual disdain towards those of the opposite sex who had migrated for work. This is despite the fact that findings explored above show instead that most migrant working children purposefully behave and act within the norms. Therefore, in Madhupur, the opportunity to challenge the status quo by standing up to the gossips is seized by neither migrant working girls nor boys. Instead, the stereotype is reinforced that those who migrate for work are “bad.” Hence, while migrant working children push and redefine the meanings of honor and shame, and in so doing show power and agency, it is highly constrained and, at times, self-defeating. This is because they entrench the very norms that are used to judge them.

Discussion and conclusions Work for the household (paid or unpaid) is central to children’s lives; however, socio-economic change brought about through global and local processes has contributed to a situation where some children have to migrate for work. Afsar (2003: 3) writes, “Generally it is the landless who migrate as they have nothing to lose. . . .” My findings show instead that while child labor migration is often due to economic imperatives, they potentially have much to lose—their honor. So, they make choices to abide by the system of honor and shame that regulates social and economic life. Children who migrate for work have not done so because of a breakdown in values or due to separation from their households. Rather, their migration for work concerns belonging, being a vital member of social and economic life, and playing by the rules. The power and agency of migrant working children is revealed by questioning and re-interpreting the norms; responding by accusing others of jealousy, through timid defiance, by policing others, and in “doing nothing.” Power is not just about having money, but is also about behaving well with others. Good behavior is a source of social power, and this is often prioritized at the expense of economic gain. Yet, there are limits which are gendered, as demonstrated by migrant working girls who cross boundaries and who, as a consequence, are socially unable



Judgments and power


to return home. Power is also expressed through mutual disdain. This shows that child migrants recreate each others’ repression through reinforcement of gendered stereotypes and practices that concern honor and shame. These findings have implications for further research, policies, and programs. Most studies on children working away from their homes and families draw attention to grievous violations of their rights. Yet, if the analysis is not grounded in the wider context in which children develop, this may give the impression that all experiences outside the home and family are exploitative. Thus, program and policy responses may not be sufficiently nuanced and may do more harm than good. Ethnographic fieldwork in both origin and destination settings is required in order to better identify the dynamic extra- and intrahousehold structures that shape the choices of child labor migrants. This knowledge is important for developing responses that are grounded in local contexts and that serve children’s best interests.

Note 1. Individual’s names have been changed for anonymity.

Bibliography R. Afsar, (2002) “Migration and Rural Livelihoods”, in K. A. Toufique and C. Turton (eds) Hands not Land: How Livelihoods are Changing in Rural Bangladesh (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies). R. Afsar, (2003) “Internal Migration and the Development Nexus: The Case of Bangladesh”, (Dhaka: RMMRU and DFID). L. Alanen, (2003) “Childhoods: The Generational Ordering of Social Relations”, in B. Mayall and H. Zeiher (eds) Childhood in Generational Perspective (London: Institute of Education). S. Amin, N. Selim, and N. Kamal Waiz (2006) Causes and Consequences of Early Marriage in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Population Council). K. M. A. Aziz, (1979) Kinship in Bangladesh (Dhaka: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research). K. M. A. Aziz, and C. Maloney (1985) Life Stages, Gender and Fertility in Bangladesh (Dhaka: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research). BBS (2003) Report on National Child Labour Survey 2002–2003 (Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics). BBS (2007) Bangladesh Population Census-2001 Community Series, Zila: Tangail (Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics). H. R. Bernard, (2006) Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 4th edn. (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press). T. Blanchet, (1996) Lost Innocence, Stolen Childhoods (Dhaka: University Press Limited).



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T. Blanchet, (2003) “Bangladeshi Girls Sold as Wives in North India” (Dhaka: Drishti Research Centre). J. Boyden, and D. Levison (2000) “Children as Economic and Social Actors in the Development Process” (Stockholm: Expert Group on Development Issues, Ministry for Foreign Affairs). J. Boyden, B. Ling, and W. E. Myers (1998) What Works for Working Children? (Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden). M. Cain, (1977) “The Economic Activities of Children in a Village in Bangladesh”, Population and Development Review, 3(3): 201–227. J. S. Coleman, (1990) Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press). A. Conticini, and D. Hulme (2006) “Escaping Violence, Seeking Freedom: Why Children in Bangladesh Migrate to the Street”, Global Poverty Research Group Working Paper (Manchester: University of Manchester). P. C. Dodd, (1973) “Family Honor and the Forces of Change in Arab Society”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4(1): 40–54. D. Eder, and J. L. Enke (1991) “The Structure of Gossip: Opportunities and Constraints on Collective Expression among Adolescents”, American Sociological Review, 56(4): 494–508. A. Giddens, (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis (London: Macmillan). Government of Bangladesh (2005) Millennium Development Goals: Bangladesh Progress Report (Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh, UN Country Team). I. M. Hashim, (2005) Research Report on Children’s Independent Migration from Northeastern to Central Ghana (Brighton: Development Research Centre (DRC) on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex). I. M. Hashim, (2006) The Positives and Negatives of Children’s Independent Migration: Assessing the Evidence and the Debates (Brighton: DRC on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex). IBRD and World Bank (2008) Global Monitoring Report 2008 MDGs and the Environment Agenda for Inclusive and Sustainable Development (Washington, DC: IBRD and World Bank). ILO (2005a) Child Labour Situation Bangladesh: Child Labour and Responses in South Asia (Geneva: International Labour Organisation). ILO (2005b) IPEC Subregional Information System on Child Labour: Child Labour and Responses in South Asia (Geneva: International Labour Organisation). S. A. Islam, (2002) “The Informal Institutional Framework in Rural Bangladesh” in K. A. Toufique and C. Turton (eds) Hands Not Land: How Livelihoods are Changing in Rural Bangladesh (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies). A. James, and A. Prout (1997) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, 2nd edn. (London: Falmer). N. Kabeer, (2001) The Power to Choose: Bangladeshi Women and Labour Market Decisions in London and Dhaka (Dhaka: University Press Limited). S. Khair, (2005) Autonomous Voluntary Child Migration: Perspectives from Bangladesh (Dhaka: RMMRU). R. Kuhn, (2001) “Never Far from Home: Parental Assets and Migrant Transfers in Matlab, Bangladesh”, RAND Labor and Population Program Working Paper Series 01–12 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND).



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A. Lawson, (2003) Focus on Bangladesh Child Labour (Dhaka: BBC). S. Lindenbaum, (1981) “Implications for Women of Changing Marriage Transactions in Bangladesh”, Studies in Family Planning, 12(11): 394–401. B. Mayall, (2003) “Generation and Gender: Childhood Studies and Feminism”, in B. Mayall and H. Zeiher (eds) Childhood in Generational Perspective (London: Institute of Education). O. Nieuwenhuys, (1994) Children’s Lifeworlds: Gender, Welfare and Labour in the Developing World (London: Routledge). J. O’Connell Davidson, and C. Farrow (2007) “Child Migration and the Construction of Vulnerability” (Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden). R. Panelli, S. Punch, and E. Robson (2007) Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth: Young Rural Lives (New York: Routledge). J. Piaget, (1970) The Origin of Intelligence in the Child, 3rd edn. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). S. Punch, (2001) “Household Division of Labour: Generation, Gender, Age, Birth Order and Sibling Composition”, Work, Employment and Society, 15(4): 803–823. S. Punch, (2007) “Negotiating Migrant Identities: Young People in Bolivia and Argentina”, Children’s Geographies, 5(1–2): 95–112. R. I. Rahman, (2007) Labour Market in Bangladesh: Changes, Inequities and Challenges (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies). S. Rahman Khan, (2001) The Socio-Legal Status of Bangali Women in Bangladesh: Implications for Development (Dhaka: University Press Limited). S. Rozario, (2002) “Gender Dimensions of Rural Change”, in K. A. Toufique and Cate Turton (eds) Hands Not Land: How Livelihoods are Changing in Rural Bangladesh (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies). E. Schildkrout, (1978) “Age and Gender in Hausa Society: Socio-Economic Roles of Children in Urban Kano”, in J. S. La Fontaine (ed.) Sex and Age as Principles of Social Differentiation (London: Academic Press). J. C. Scott, (1985) Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). B. Sen, and D. Hulme (eds) (2006) The State of the Poorest 2005/2006 Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh: Tales of Ascent, Descent, Marginality and Persistence (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies). T. Siddiqui, (2003) Migration as a Livelihood Strategy of the Poor: The Bangladesh Case (Dhaka: RMMRU and DFID). D. Thorsen, (2007) “If Only I get Enough Money for a Bicycle!” A Study of Childhoods, Migration and Adolescent Aspirations against a Backdrop of Exploitation and Trafficking in Burkina Faso (Brighton: DRC on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex). K. A. Toufique, and C. Turton (2002) Hands Not Land: How Livelihoods are Changing in Rural Bangladesh (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies). US Department of State (2008) Trafficking in Persons Report 2008: Bangladesh Section (Washington, DC: US Department of State). A. Whitehead, and I. M. Hashim (2005) Children and Migration: Background Paper for DFID Migration Team (Brighton: DRC on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex). A. Whitehead, I. M. Hashim, and V. Iversen (2005) “Child Migration, Child Agency and Intergenerational Relations in Africa and South Asia” Paper presented at Childhoods 2005 Conference (Oslo).



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C. Wickham, (1998) “Gossip and Resistance among the Medieval Peasantry”, Past and Present, 1(160): 3–24. A. A. M. Zeid, (1965) “Honour and Shame among the Bedouins of Egypt”, in J. G. Peristiany (ed.) Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson). V. Zelizer, (1994) Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).



Karin Heissler

Transnational Students’ Perspectives on Schooling in the United States and Mexico: The Salience of School Experience and Country of Birth Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, and Juan Sánchez García

Introduction As schooling becomes an increasingly common institutional presence across the world and as decided majorities of children now attend at least some version of primary school, it is hardly surprising that childhood gets increasingly constructed as a time of dependence, need, and preparation. As this volume’s introduction notes, vulnerability is a common fourth thread of this predominant conceptualization of children. Yet, as the introduction also hints, these conceptualizations suffer in at least two ways: whether optimistic or pessimistic, they tend to homogenize a broad and heterogeneous portion of the lifespan and they direct us away from attention to children’s agency. Instead, adult attention focuses on what children need, what should be done to them or for them, but much less common is the consideration of children’s views of the world they are traversing and their actions and intentions in that traversing. Here we echo our fellow contributors by questioning the homogenizing lens through which children, notably internationally mobile children, tend to be conceptualized. And we offer additions to the larger project of including migrant children’s perspectives on the social and institutional realities that they negotiate. We do so by considering the specific topic of encounters with schooling and the specific cases of 632 largely invisible children whom we found through visiting 1673 classrooms in primarias (grade 1–6 schools) and secundarias (grade 7–9 schools) in the Mexican states of Nuevo León and Zacatecas. Five hundred and twelve of these students had attended school in both 230



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the United States and Mexico, while another 120 were US-born, although they had never attended school in the United States. These students are “largely invisible” because both US and Mexican education and other government policies have conceptualized international migration between the two countries as largely from Mexico and to the United States. Per this logic, they were not supposed to be where we found them. Yet, this invisibility was likely a factor in some of these students’ exercise of agency. For example, because of their Mexican school’s limited acknowledgment of US-developed English language skills and/or limited willingness to build on students’ interest in this subject,1 several transnational students improvised ways to maintain their English skills (e.g., regularly practicing with an aunt who had also spent time in the United States). Before focusing on these children’s perspectives, it is important to quickly trace the intentions of schooling in both the United States and Mexico to illustrate the mismatch between these intentions and the perspectives of the children we studied. That mismatch creates the contexts in which these students negotiated their sense of identity, national affiliation(s), educational aspiration, as well as their sense of agency and efficacy as a student. It is these negotiations that put these migrant children at various crossroads. At those crossroads they exercise agency, subject to the expectations, awareness, and physical parameters that shape what these crossroads consist of (Brettell and Hollifield, 2000). To put this more plainly, children decide if they identify as Mexican, American, or both; they decide if they hope to continue their studies at the preparatoria (high school), universidad (university), and so on; they decide if they view themselves as capable students or not, but they do all of these subject to influence of a powerful list of other people and institutions. In earlier work on this dataset (Hamann et al., 2006, 2008; Sánchez Garcia, 2007; Zúñiga and Hamann, 2006, 2008, 2009; Zúñiga et al., 2009), we determined that estimates that 2 percent of children enrolled in Mexican elementary and middle schools have prior experience in US schools and that at least 1 percent are US citizens (by place of birth) are both plausible. It is important to remember that thousands of children are negotiating these crossroads.

Schooling and transnational links between the United States and Mexico Since the Mexican Revolution in the second decade of the twentieth century, Mexico has used schooling to reinvent itself to build a patriotic



Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, and Juan Sánchez García

Transnational Students’ Perspectives on Schooling

loyalty to country, and thereby to frame inculcating national identity as part of the task of preparing youth for adulthood (Booth, 1941; Dawson, 2004; Dewey, 1964[1926]). These efforts have been so successful that they extend beyond national borders. Scholars refer to a “Greater Mexico” (see Limón, 1998) and politicians to “comunidades en el extranjero” (communities outside of the geographic boundaries of the nation-state) where loyalties to Mexico and self-identity as “Mexican” linger. Yet, just as Mexico has been rapidly transformed through schooling, the United States has built a substantial “receiving” infrastructure in its schools, with newcomer centers, English as a second language (ESL) programs, and other special efforts enrolling millions of students that have the larger intent of fitting newcomers into American society. These Mexican and US school infrastructures coexist, on opposite sides of the border, as economic and demographic dynamics continue to push and pull people (as well as materials and communications) across that arbitrary but consequential divide. The Pew Hispanic Center (2008) recently estimated that there were more than 28 million Hispanics of Mexican origin living in the United States in 2006; 40 percent of these had been born in Mexico. That same report noted that 28.7 percent of the United States’ Hispanic population was of age 14 or younger (compared to 17.4 percent of the nonHispanic white population). An updated and slightly differently focused Pew Hispanic Center (2009) press release estimated that 12.7 million Mexico-born persons lived in the United States in 2008, constituting 32 percent of the United States’ total foreign-born population. Seven million of that 12.7 million were unauthorized (undocumented). Passel (2006) estimated that, in 2005, 56 percent of the unauthorized population in the United States was from Mexico. He went on to note that there were 1.8 million undocumented Mexican minors in the United States and an additional 3.1 million authorized Mexican children living with unauthorized parents. The Migration Policy Institute (Dixon et al., 2006) reported that the 2000 estimate for US-born living in Mexico was 358,614, nearly double the 1990 population and four times the 1970 tally. They noted that newer data of this type is not available (and that the US Census Bureau does not collect it, nor does the US State Department, although it used to). However, if the trajectory between 1970 and 2000 has held, even a conservative projection of contemporary (2009) numbers suggests the number of US citizens living in Mexico exceeds 400,000. These statistics quantitatively denote how large the population is with links to both countries. More specifically, they help illustrate the size of the pools from which come the children in Mexican schools who



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have US school experience. In the case of the unauthorized populations statistics, the numbers illustrate the size of at least one segment of the Mexican origin population in the United States that might be disposed (or required) to return to Mexico (although the returning population pool also includes many with legal status in the United States). Our point is not that the students we met in Mexico had been undocumented while in the United States, nor that their parents had been (likely some were and some were not). Rather we want to remind readers that there are various contexts that compel transnationally mobile children to be mobile and that shape the circumstances in which they exercise their agency. What these numbers undergird but do not themselves show is that there are students in Mexican schools for whom Mexican schools’ logic of building loyalty to Mexico competes with other biographic experience intended to build loyalty to a different nation-state (to the United States). Additionally, there are children in Mexican schools who can anticipate that they may spend some or much of their adulthood in the United States. Our focus is on how they comprehend and negotiate this tension. In earlier work examining most of the subset of students who reported transnational school experience, we found that only 59 percent of these students identified as Mexican (although all were attending Mexican schools), while 6 percent identified as American, and 35 percent as Mexican-American (Zúñiga and Hamann, 2008). Here we look at variation in different student population’s educational aspirations, academic self-identities, and views of US schools versus Mexican ones. Each of these relate to students’ senses of self, opportunity, and belonging. Tables 11.1–11.5 illuminate how groups of transnational students in Mexican schools understand themselves, their prospects as students, and their affinity with or difference from peers who have biographically different school backgrounds. Table 11.6 broaches questions about whether these students show evidence of academic vulnerability. In raising the prospect of vulnerability, we do not want to reinforce the paradigm of nonagentive children that so much of this volume is intended to challenge. However, it remains the case that if schools mark transnational students as less likely to succeed academically and/or if they are less responsive to students with transnational backgrounds, then the agency demonstrated by these children will encompass their negotiation of such dynamics. Comparing four populations found in Mexican schools—(1) students with US school experience who were born in Mexico, (2) students with US school experience who were born in the United States, (3) students




234 School aspirations (level you would like to study to) Through Grade 6

Through Grade 9

High School

Vocational Training

University

Mexico-born transnational school experience

7 (3%)

17 (9%)

26 (13%)

39 (20%)

108 (55%)

197

US-born transnational school experience

2 (3%)

7 (9%)

10 (12%)

52 (65%)

80

9 (11%)

Total

Mexico-born Mexico-only school experience

121 (1%)

779 (8%)

1518 (15%)

1994 (20%)

5734 (56%)

10,146

US-born Mexico-only school experience

1 (1%)

7 (8%)

11 (12%)

10 (11%)

59 (68%)

88

Source: UDEM-CONACYT Survey 2004–2005. N = 10,511

Table 11.2

Self-described quality of school marks Poor

Average

Good

Excellent

Total


14 (8%)

97 (48%)

79 (39%)

11 (5%)

201


1 (1%)

45 (56%)

25 (31%)

10 (12%)

81


438 (4%)

5340 (51%)

3699 (37%)

862 (8%)

10,339


6 (7%)

48 (54%)

29 (33%)

6 (6%)

89




Table 11.1

Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, and Juan Sánchez García How would you compare US schools to Mexican ones?

Student background

Worse than Mexican schools

Equal to Mexican schools

Better than Mexican schools

Total


9 (13%)

17 (24%)

46 (64%)

72


1 (14%)

1 (14%)

5 (72%)

7


1049 (10%)

2534 (25%)

6657 (65%)

10,240

72 (85%)

85


5 (6%)

8 (9%)


Table 11.4

How are Mexican students treated in US schools?

Student background

Poorly


21 (29%)


0

Equally

Well

Total

28 (39%)

23 (32%)

72

2 (29%)

5 (71%)

7


2742 (26%)

4722 (46%)

2782 (27%)

10,246


13 (15%)

41 (48%)

32 (37%)

86


without US school experience who were born in Mexico, and (4) students without US school experience but who were born in the United States—allows us to consider how international school experience and the right to live and work in the United States as adults (by virtue of US



Table 11.3

235


Table 11.5

How do your classmates with US school experience speak Spanish? Poorly


5 (6%)

27 (31%)

35 (40%)

20 (23%)

87


2 (10%)

6 (30%)

2 (10%)

10 (50%)

20

2533 (28%) 3318 (36%)

2757 (31%)

9077

16 (21%)

82


469 (5%)


6 (7%)

Fine

21 (25%)

Well

No answer/ I don’t know such a student

Total

Student background

39 (47%)

Source: UDEM-CONACYT Survey 2004–2005. N = 9266

Table 11.6

Have you ever repeated a grade?

Student background

No

Yes

Total


71 (67%)

35 (33%)

106


45 (74%)

16 (26%)

61

Mexico-born Mexico-only school experience US-born Mexico-only school experience

6927 (91%)

1 (33%)

400 (9%)

7619

2 (67%)

3

Source: UDEM-CONACYT Survey 2004–2005. N = 7789

citizenship conferred by US birthplace) affect US/Mexican transnational students’ sense of academic potential, opportunity, and responsibility. Differentiating US-born students in Mexican schools from Mexicanborn students in Mexican schools allows an imperfect window into the perceived salience of national citizenship. Because the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution declares any child born within US borders to be a US citizen, all the US-born children in this study have legal status to be in the United States. Framed another way, these students can



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realistically imagine themselves as of the United States, although that does not mean all in this category actually do so. In contrast, for most of the Mexican-born students (whether they have US school experience or not), imagining themselves as of the United States would suggest a mismatch between sense of self and what was legally likely in their future as adults.2

Methodology Data on the four populations come from surveys we conducted with funding from CONACYT (the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Técnologia), Mexico’s national science foundation. We surveyed more than 24,000 students in 1673 randomly selected classrooms in 377 randomly selected Mexican schools in the states of Nuevo León and Zacatecas. The Nuevo León onsite surveying was conducted in the late autumn of 2004, and the Zacatecas data collection occurred in the autumn of 2005. While Nuevo León and Zacatecas may not be perfect proxies for Mexico as a whole (no two states are), they were selected because of how they contrast with each other and how they encompass dynamics relevant elsewhere in Mexico. Zacatecas is a typical example of a Mexican state with a long-standing high participation rate in international migration, and Nuevo León is a typical example of Mexican state with a long-standing but modest participation rate in international migration. Nuevo León has a lower participation rate in international migration than the Mexican average, while Zacatecas’ average is higher. Nuevo León has a more urban population than the Mexican average, while Zacatecas’ is more rural. Nuevo León is one of Mexico’s wealthiest states, while Zacatecas is one of the poorer ones. Excluding the 7000 students in our population who were in the first three grades of primaria and whose literacy skills were not sufficiently developed to complete a written survey,3 17,637 students responded to multiple-choice and short-answer questions about their migration and school histories, their current experiences in Mexican schools, and their senses of how that schooling related to their future interests and possibilities. These survey takers would have spanned in age from 8 to 16. Of these 17,637 students, 437 identified that they had previous experience in US schools and of these 113 had been born in the United States. Another 120 students in this subsample (of 17,000) indicated that they had been born in the United States but had never attended school there. At the bottom of each table, we share which subset of our surveyed population the answers came from.4





We also make limited use below of interview data. We carried out interviews with 121 transnational students and with 25 of their teachers. Partially because of language limitations among interviewers, most of the interviews were carried out in Spanish (and are translated here), but several students code-switched mid-explanation and there were a few who only agreed to be interviewed if the interview could be carried out in English. The interviewees were a population of convenience; we interviewed transnational students when there was time and willing interviewees, but those recruited this way may not be representative of our whole population of interest. Nor do we have interviews of Mexican students without transnational experience, although they form the largest portion of our sample.

Student perspectives As we thought about what effects transnational school experience and US citizenship might have on educational aspirations of students enrolled in Mexican schools, we developed various hypotheses. According to one, because legal and social expectations in the United States place greater emphasis on more years of schooling than does Mexico (in Mexico mandatory schooling ends at the end of secundaria—the end of 9th grade—whereas not finishing high school—12th grade—is stigmatized in the United States), it seemed plausible that those with US school experience would have internalized the expectation that continued schooling is important and their aspirations would be higher. In contrast, a second hypothesis suggests that if transnational mobility was a risk factor that inhibited educational success and/or that limited students’ attachment to school, then perhaps transnational students would have converted existing struggles with school into a larger reduction in school aspirations. In other words, according to this scenario, transnational students would have more modest educational aspirations than Mexican students who had not migrated internationally. A third hypothesis uses the theoretical model of primary and secondary sectors of the economy. According to that model (Piore, 1979; Spener, 1988), in the primary sector of the economy, school attainment is rewarded with higher remuneration and greater job stability. In the secondary sector, which includes mostly blue-collar and unskilled jobs, school attainment does not correlate with wage or job security, although an identifiable vocation is likely to be the category in which one seeks work. According to our third hypothesis, it seemed plausible that the



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US-born (who all would have legal access to participate in the US economy) might have higher educational aspirations than those who were not US-born (and who, in many instances, would lack legal access to the US economy). In turn, the Mexico-born portion of the sample might be more inclined to seek vocational training per a rationale that the category of training rather than the net quantity and attainment of schooling was what was economically salient. As Table 11.1 illustrates, those who were US-born were most likely to aspire to a university education (66 percent vs. 56 percent). This finding is consistent with our third hypothesis. In contrast, the lack of a difference in educational aspirations among the Mexican-born with and without US educational experience argues against there being a straightforward effect of transnationalism on educational aspirations, at least at the level of selecting between technical training and university experience. However, that a slightly higher portion of students with transnational school experience aspired to finish only secundaria or less (12 percent of the Mexican-born with transnational school experience and 14 percent of the US-born vs. only 9 percent in each of the two populations with only Mexican school experience) suggests that, among the more vulnerable end of the continuum, transnational school experience may be an exacerbating factor, lowering school expectations. So the second hypothesis may also have some explanatory merit, but not for all transnational students. Comparing students with transnational experience to those without it suggests a favorable transnational effect on university aspirations (160 of 277 or 57.7 percent vs. 5793 of 10,234 or 56.6 percent). This is, however, misleading, as country of birth (reviewed in the previous paragraph) seems a likelier explanation of the difference than does transnational school experience. Still, the first hypothesis might have explanatory power in one dimension: those with transnational experience seemed less likely to see finishing preparatoria (i.e., high school) as an end goal for their schooling. In the United States, a high school diploma does not educationally distinguish people from most of their peers, whereas in Mexico it does. Perhaps the two populations with transnational school experience may agree on being less likely to view high school as a terminal degree, even as they bifurcate on their aspirations. If so, then one portion of this population might determine that just finishing preparatoria does not count for much, so those who cannot see going farther than that are slightly more likely to accept not even going that far. Yet a second portion of the transnationally experienced could share a concern about the limitation of just finishing preparatoria but then





determine to aspire to vocational or university preparation. An interview recorded in rural Nuevo León with a student, José, born in the United States, illustrates some of the reasoning that informed how at least this student was shaping his educational aspirations. For José, “here” refers to here in México, not specifically the rural community where we encountered him: Interviewer: Considering your future, what do you think you’re going to be when you’ve grown? What does the future hold for you? José: Well, study high school I imagine . . . I want to study business management. Interviewer: And you’re going to study in the United States? José: No, here in Monterrey. Interviewer: You want to go to Monterrey? And, for example, your peers, how do they seem? Will everyone have the same opportunities or will some struggle? José: Well, we need to be realistic. “Yes” I feel that the majority will struggle. Interviewer: Possibly not going further than secundaria? And then what will they work on here? José: Well, in the stores or on the farms. Not many will go on to prepa. Self-perceptions about school success We also compared our four subpopulations’ self-characterizations of their school success. Claims about how one is faring in school are an imperfect proxy for actual grades and achievements. Moreover, if the effects of country of birth or transnational experience relate to self-assessment rather than objective performance, then Table 11.2 is misleading as a proxy for performance. Still, given that our focus is on how migration and legal status affect the way a child sees the world, if there are relationships between these factors and perceived school success then comparing groups on this dimension may provide insight into how students with transnational experiences understand their identities as students. Here again we developed multiple hypotheses. Perhaps moving between school systems in two countries would be disruptive with a negative effect on grades and perceptions about grades. Alternatively, the US educational system’s greater emphasis on self-esteem could make it likelier for students to be more optimistic about their achievement even if it was comparable to or even worse than that of their



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nontransnational peers. This second hypothesis is informed by other survey responses in which transnational students were more likely to describe US schools as fun and US teachers as caring than they were to apply either of these characterizations to their Mexican experiences (Zúñiga and Hamann, 2009). Per a third hypothesis, students whose sense of being Mexican might be less secure because of their US citizenship and/or self-identification as American or Mexican-American might fare less well in Mexican schools because of a relative mismatch between their sense of self and the identity that Mexican schools seem most apt to confirm. By a fourth conjecture, for some students, experience in two systems might offer a particular cognitive and academic advantage. That is, just as transnationalism might leave some students between two cultures, feeling marginal in both the United States and Mexico, for others it might be a vehicle for becoming of two cultures. When faced with academic tasks, such students might be advantaged (and thereby more successful) in that they have two repertoires from which to draw as they attempt to solve academic tasks. Maybe transnational experience would create more bifurcation, or fatter ends to the bell curve, than one would expect in a normal distribution. There were three intriguing variations in responses to this question, but none align in a straightforward fashion with our hypotheses. First, bundling “good” and “excellent” responses together and “poor” and “average” together, US-born students who had only Mexican school experience seemed the least likely to report educational success. Thirtynine percent identified as successful, as compared to 44 percent of the Mexican-born with transnational experience, 43 percent of the US-born with transnational experience, and 45 percent of the Mexicanborn without transnational experience. Perhaps these US-born but never schooled in the US students were least likely to feel a link between their Mexican schooling and their anticipated adult life experiences, with their perceptions of their grades thus more pessimistic than their peers’. In contrast, US-born students with transnational school experience seemed most likely to consider their grades “excellent” and much less likely to report “bad.” It is hard to explain this relative optimism, however, except perhaps by returning to Table 11.1 and noting that the US-born more commonly indicated an aspiration to go to college. Perhaps the link between school success and future opportunity was most obvious to this portion of our sample. Irrespective of specific explanations, it does seem clear that country of birth was not a good predictor for how students would respond to this question. Something about schooling and country of birth together seemed to matter. Still, if one




242


Comparing American schools to Mexican ones One consideration behind our whole study was concern with how schooling builds a sense of national pride and belonging and how transnational students negotiate the discordant messages of two countries’ school systems telling them to be loyal and proud (Rippberger and Staudt, 2003). While our data do not support a comparison of national pride building (because there is no US-born, American, mononational student population to compare the Mexican mononational population to), Table 11.3 shows patterns in how those with comparative experience responded versus how those without such experience responded. Those patterns seemed to be further affected by the students’ country of birth and related right to citizenship. The 79 students who had comparative school experiences had weaker impressions of US schools than those who did not have such experiences. That said, it was only 10 out of 79 who thought US schools were weaker. Direct experience with US schools appears to have had a negative impact for some on the sense of their quality. Those with direct experience were not more likely to find US schools better than Mexican ones—the group most convinced of that was the US-born without US school experience. There did seem to be a birthplace pattern to favoring American schools over Mexican ones, with the US-born with transnational school experience more likely to favor US schools than Mexican-born students with transnational school experience, and, as noted, with the US-born without transnational school experience more likely to favor American schools than were Mexican students with just mononational school experience. The US-born without direct experience in US schools was most likely of the four groups to favor US schools. Perhaps for them idealized images of the United States were easiest to conjure because they lacked direct experience to contradict them. They were also not ultimately circumstantially blocked from US opportunities, nor were they as prone to worry about possible disloyalty to their country of birth, as their Mexican-born peers might occasionally have been. The US-born but only Mexico-schooled population also seemed least willing to believe that US schools could be worse than Mexican ones. Perhaps this



compares middle responses (average or good) to extreme ones (poor and excellent), one sees that no population was more or less prone to an extreme response (12–13 percent of all four groups’ responses fit in an extreme category), even as they varied in terms of the optimism or pessimism of their academic achievement self-portrayals.

243

reflected some sense of displacement in Mexican schools, a conceptualization that Mexican schools were not quite for students like them. (Data in Table 11.4 in the next segment also support this interpretation.) The students who were most skeptical of US schools were those with direct experience there, but who lacked a US birthright to guarantee access to future US economic opportunities supported by US school experiences (i.e., Mexican-born transnational students). But it is striking to also note that those who were US-born and had US school experience were less likely than their US-born but no US school experience peers to believe US schools were better. US schools’ reputation then might be slightly ahead of their actual quality, or the experience of being identified as Mexican or Latino in US schools (despite US birthplace) might have negatively colored how some US-born with transnational school experience students thought of their US schools. That said, a majority of all four populations thought US schools were better than Mexican ones. This point has intriguing implications for Mexican schools as it suggests that the majority of their students think schooling somewhere else is better. Yet it is also striking to note that a much higher portion of Mexican-born students (both with and without US school experience) resisted categorizing one system or the other as stronger. As will be further noted in the next segment, Levinson (2001) has noted that Mexican students in his studies have internalized a defiant belief in equality (defiant because this belief seems to be particular to the secundaria age-level of the students he studied, and belied by the actual social class differences among students). Perhaps we are capturing and measuring some of that same trait here. Mexicanborn students were most devoted to asserting that school quality in both countries was equal. Such a stance avoids characterizations of disloyalty or self-deprecation on the one hand, as well as charges of nationalistic chauvinism on the other. Given the variation illustrated in Table 11.3, no one student’s responses will speak for all the perspectives within a typology, let alone across the four groups. Nonetheless, the following interview segment from a student in his last year of secundaria in a small city in Nuevo León does highlight some of the dynamics that informed why students offered the responses that they did to these questions. Interviewer: How are teachers over there [in the US]? And how are the teachers here? José Guadalupe: They are very, that is to say, they are not [pause] . . . There are truly all kinds of course. I feel that there are





many that don’t, that is to say, their opinion is the right one. They don’t allow us to say. They don’t take us into account. Interviewer: Where are they like this? José Guadalupe: Here [in Mexico]. Interviewer: Here and there? José Guadalupe: There, no. Even when there is a dumb or stupid idea, they have to listen, to heed, there in the United States. Interviewer: And, what about the norms of the schools, the rules that one has to follow and all that, how are they? Where is it stricter? Where is it more flexible? Here or there? José Guadalupe: Here [in Mexico] they are stricter. Interviewer: That is how it appears? Why? José Guadalupe: Because [pause], I feel that [pause], like the school uniform, here if you don’t bring your uniform, they make you, I don’t know, they make a report about you, or something like that. There in the United States, if you don’t bring a uniform, there they give you one. They lend it to you there at school if you didn’t wear one, whatever the reason. Interviewer: And what about discipline? Where do they ask for more compliance? Here or there? José Guadalupe: Here. Interviewer: They make you comply more here? Why? José Guadalupe: Well, like with the teachers, you can’t answer back to them, even if you do so politely. If something bothers you, here you can’t say what that is. There you can. Here they see it as a lack of respect.

Student perspectives on Mexican students in the United States We also asked a more pointed question about US schools, asking students to comment upon how they thought Mexican students were treated in US schools. As Table 11.4 illustrates, almost 27 percent of all respondents (2776 of 10,411) suggested that they felt Mexican students were not treated as well. (Phrased a different way, nearly three-quarters felt there was no problem.) More than a quarter of those who were Mexico-born made this allegation (with little difference between those with and those without US school experience). The US-born were not as willing to make this judgment, however. Only 14 percent (13 of 93) and none who had transnational experience were willing to claim that Mexican students were treated poorly in US schools. Almost 40 percent of the US-born were willing to claim that US schools treated Mexican



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students well, a percentage that was substantially higher than either of the Mexico-born populations were willing to assert. Indeed, as with Table 11.3, the US-born seem to have a clearly more favorable take on how US schools operate. We can only conjecture about why the Mexican-born would be more skeptical of how Mexican students are treated in US schools than would their US-born counterparts (many of whom identify as “Mexican”). Perhaps it reflects skepticism on the part of those without an official purchase in the United States about what kind of response they and compatriots would receive from a US institution (i.e., schools). Juxtaposed with data from Table 11.3 that showed that a majority of the Mexico-born thought US schools were better than Mexican ones, this sets up the rather poignant point: Many of the Mexico-born think there’s something better somewhere else where they are not sure they are welcome. Evaluating the Spanish of transnational students Through 25 interviews with transnational teachers as well as formal interaction with school administrators in each site, we were able to ascertain that many Mexican educators had little awareness of the presence of transnational students and thus few overt stereotypes regarding what such students were like, although we did find a few educators who assured us that transnational students were weaker academically than native Mexican students and that their Spanish was not as good (Hamann et al., 2008). Our investigation into peers’ impressions of classmates with transnational experience was more systematic. In particular, we checked whether peers felt there were any limitations in their classmates’ Spanish skills. The most striking point in this inquiry was that nearly a third of survey takers did not answer the question or claimed to not know any students with transnational experience, although their reluctance may have reflected an aversion to characterizing their peers. Similarly, among those who did respond, it is important to recognize that most peers did not categorically claim that transnational students’ Spanish skills were weaker (10 percent or less in all four subpopulations), with the Mexico-born mononationals the least willing to offer a negative characterization. These were the impressions even though, based on our interviews, it was true that at least a few transnational students did have weaker Spanish skills and weaker Spanish was often offered as a rationale for having a transnational student repeat in Mexico the grade level that they had last completed in the United States.





Given a chance to stereotype their transnational classmates, few were willing to do so. Levinson (2001), among others, has documented the solidarity that Mexican students often feel toward each other; perhaps this was a display of that impulse. That more of the US-born without transnational school experience were willing to insist that peers with US school experience spoke Spanish well (more than any other category) is interesting, but we do not have a good hypothesis to explain this. Perhaps some autobiographical impulse to insist that those with US experience be included is in play. The range of answers summarized in Table 11.5 highlights that students in each of the four populations varied in terms of how they thought of their transnational peers’ Spanish abilities. Given that, the comments of Yamilet, a secundaria student we found in a rural high migration participation part of Nuevo León, are not typical of any group’s viewpoint, per se. They do, however, offer some sense of how language can figure in a transnational student’s negotiation of social networks and mobility. Interviewer: Do you have friends there [in the US]? Yamilet: Yes. Yes I do. Interviewer: And here? Yamilet: Here too. They are the same, although they speak differently. There they speak in Spanish and English and here only Spanish. Interviewer: Your companions over there, your friends over there, do they also speak Spanish? Yamilet: Some . . . There maybe only two don’t know Spanish. Interviewer: Of all your peers at school or of your friends over there? Yamilet: My friends. Interviewer: Are they friends from school? Yamilet: There in Washington? Yes. Interviewer: And everybody in the group you’re part of, how many are in that group? Yamilet: Maybe thirty. Interviewer: And of all of them, only two don’t speak Spanish? Yamilet: Of the ones I’m connected with? Interviewer: Of your friends there, they can be from school or your neighborhood there, of those only two don’t speak Spanish? Yamilet: Yes Interviewer: And when you are there, do you speak in Spanish or in English? Yamilet: We speak more in English . . . Interviewer: And over here?



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Grade-level retentions The tables discussed so far have juxtaposed opinions and impressions. This final table differs from the previous ones in that it asks a yes/no question about a specific experience, querying whether students have ever repeated a grade. Early in our study we discovered that having students repeat a grade in Mexico was one Mexican school strategy to deal with students who, because of their US experience, were behind in Spanish skills. Although Table 11.6 does not emphasize this specific point, we found among transnational students who had repeated a year that it was much more common that the repeated year had happened in Mexico (Zúñiga and Hamann, 2009). This may well be because, unlike US schools with ESL and other strategies meant to meet the needs of newcomers, Mexican schools lacked other strategies for responding to limited Spanish proficiency and other particularities of students with substantial US school experience. Table 11.6, which includes only data from Zacatecas (interview data from Nuevo León led us to look at this systematically in Zacatecas), shows that transnational students were much more likely to have repeated a grade than Mexican-born students with a mononational experience in Mexican schools. Although intended as a remedial or “catch-up” strategy, in the United States repeating a grade is associated with higher levels of school failure (Alexander et al., 1994; Jimerson, 2001; Shepard and Smith, 1989). Given the point-in-time nature of our sample, it is hard to know whether the transnational “repeaters” in our sample were any likelier to perform less well long term at school than the transnational students who never repeated. (Perhaps a next step is to correlate repeaters with selfreported grades to see if that yields any patterns.) If repeaters were more likely to struggle with school, then the discrepancy in “repeating” rates between those who were transnational and those who were not may hint at transnational students confronting academic challenges that mononational students do not. On a related point, if repeating points to vulnerability or hazard, then the 28 percent repeat rate among those who were US-born should be of concern to US educators and policymakers, as it suggests school struggles among a population that has a right to work and live in the United States in adulthood.



Yamilet: Here, well more in Spanish and, at times, in English. Sometimes we don’t want to speak in Spanish, I mean English, because it is better not to have classmates think we’re saying something bad about them, even though we aren’t.

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Conclusion As revealed by the data analyzed in this chapter, there are differences between three transnational populations—US-born and Mexican-born students with transnational school experience and US-born students with only Mexican school experience and the Mexico-born, mononational majority. The data concurrently affirm the variation of experiences and worldviews of those with migration experience and the salience of the subcategories we divided them into. Yet these experiential categories are hardly determinative. Migrant children (children with migration experience) in Mexico are at crossroads, but subgroup by subgroup and within the various subgroups just what those crossroads look like and (continuing the metaphor) where the various pathways lead are variable. There are hints that those with transnational school experience might be more likely to struggle academically (based on grade retentions), yet they are also more likely to claim that their grades are strong (at least the US-born among them). There is evidence that the US-born are more likely to aspire to a university education, though how salient this aspiration is for these students’ subsequent negotiation of school, how well Mexican teachers do or do not respond to it, and what its implications are for these students’ adulthoods in the United States and/or Mexico are all open questions. What seems most important to highlight is that the transnational students we surveyed and interviewed were human beings, albeit at the younger end of the spectrum. As such, they made sense of what they encountered, they absorbed and pursued ideas of what they should be and what they should do, and, more generally, they negotiated complex realities. They had opinions about how long and to what level they should continue their schooling. They varied in their sense of how successful they were as students. They varied in their opinions about which country’s school system was stronger, with many asserting that the US system was stronger, although none were enrolled in that system at the time we surveyed them. The survey respondents also varied in terms of their opinions of transnational classmates’ skills with Spanish, while an interview highlighted a sociolinguistic sophistication regarding



This final focus on grade-level repetition varies from our previous five tables in that it focuses on what is done to students rather than by them. However, we bring it up here as a reminder that transnational students’ exercise of agency often occurs in reaction to broad parameters that they do not control.

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how choice of one language versus the other might include or exclude those who were present. Finally, transnational students varied in terms of their academic trajectories, not just geographically as our emphasis on more than one nation has kept reiterating, but also chronologically, with some repeating grade levels while others are not asked to. There are multiple policy implications of this larger research project, ranging from teacher preparation implications (like adapting the asignatura regional that is part of Mexico teacher preparation so as to highlight the very existence of students with transnational academic biographies) to rationales for binational educational collaboration, but the policy emphasis of this chapter and this volume is not intended to be so pointed and specific. Rather this chapter and the larger volume are most relevant to policy in their overarching insistence that internationally mobile children think, communicate, interpret, and act. They are agentive. That means that as crucial as the question is to consider what schooling for US/Mexico transnational should look like, it is an intrinsically incomplete question. Policymakers, educators, and other adults all can pose these questions, but it is still students, like Andrea, quoted below, who will pay greater or lesser attention in class, who will decide what parts of what happens there is relevant to what they want and need, and where they expect to be. Andrea was not the most articulate student we interviewed, nor the most ambitious; nor was her story the most heartening or harrowing. And that’s ultimately the point. Andrea and girls like her are (or were) in Mexican classrooms and they participated in determining how or how much that particular fact mattered. Interviewer: And what do you think your future will be like? Andrea: (Pause), that I will return [to the US]. Here in México I will come to visit a lot, that’s for sure. I will finish my studies and then I will visit often to see my friends and all that. Beyond that, I don’t know. I’ll have a career and see where that takes me. Interviewer: Have you thought about what career you might want? Andrea: Ummh. Interviewer: To what level would you like to study? Andrea: Until the end. Interviewer: Until the end. Andrea: Yes. Interviewer: Is there a career that you like? Andrea: Many, many. Interviewer: There are a lot that you like?





Andrea: Hair stylist, clothes designer, early childhood educator, singer. [Laughs] Interviewer: Oh that is good. And you see yourself more in the US than here? Andrea: Yes Interviewer: Why “yes”? Andrea: Because I will return to live over there. I don’t know what part, probably [a different place than before], but we will see what comes. At most, we will stay here another year, two, three, or maybe four, but we will return to the US. We will return. Andrea was not sure what her future would bring or what she wanted it to lead to, but she was clear that she expected the geographies to be plural. These points, of course, shape the cosmology that Andrea brings with her everyday at school. It is worth wondering to what extent Mexican schools (or US schools) are ready to meet her at this point.

Notes 1. We twice recorded English-as-a-foreign-language teachers in secundaria welcoming transnational students’ assistance with pronunciations and other English learning tasks. These were the only overt instances we recorded of Mexican teachers adapting instruction because of an asset that transnational students brought to their classrooms. 2. Because birth to a US citizen parent and/or naturalization conferred through a parent’s application for residency and citizenship are other ways to acquire legal status to be in the United States, some of the students born in Mexico who have US school experience and even some of the students born in Mexico who have no international experience may also be US citizens. Nonetheless, comparing birthplaces works as a proxy indicator, allowing us to compare groups where all are US citizens to peers who mostly are not. 3. This group responded to a much briefer group oral survey that asked if any had ever studied before in the United States. 4. In the tables that follow there are some small deviations from the total numbers of identified students. These deviations have three sources: a few students left a few questions unanswered; more substantially, in the Nuevo León dataset we initially restricted the full-length questionnaires to only two grades (6th and 9th) instead of all six (4th through 9th); and third, there were questions we only asked to the Zacatecas sample.

Bibliography K. L. Alexander, D. R. Entwisle, and S. L. Dauber (1994) On the Success of Failure: A Reassessment of the Effects of Retention in the Primary Grades (New York: Cambridge University Press).



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G. C. Booth (1941) Mexican School Made Society (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). C. Brettell and J. F. Hollifield (2000) Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines (New York: Routledge). A. Dawson (2004) Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press). J. Dewey (1964[1926]) “Mexico’s Educational Renaissance”, in W. W. Brickman (ed.) John Dewey’s Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World: Mexico—China—Turkey (New York: Teachers College Press). D. Dixon, J. Murray, and J. Gelatt (2006) America’s Emigrants: US Retirement Migration to Mexico and Panama. Available at: http://www.migrationinformation.org/ feature/display.cfm?ID=416. Accessed on April 4, 2009. E. T. Hamann, V. Zúñiga, and J. Sánchez García (2006) “Pensando en Cynthia y su Hermana: Educational Implications of US/Mexico Transnationalism for Children”, Journal of Latinos in Education, 5(4): 253–274. E. T. Hamann, V. Zúñiga, and J. Sánchez García (2008) “From Nuevo León to the USA and Back Again: Transnational Students in Mexico”, Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, 6(1): 60–84. S. R. Jimerson (2001) “Meta-Analysis of Grade Retention Research: Implications for Practice in the Twenty-First Century”, School Psychology Review, 30(3): 420–437. B. Levinson (2001) We Are All Equal: Student Culture and Identity at a Mexican Secondary School, 1988–1998 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). J. E. Limón (1998) American Encounters: Greater Mexico, the United States, and the erotics of culture (Boston, MA: Beacon Press). J. S. Passel (2006) The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S. Available at: http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php? ReportID=61. Accessed on June 19, 2007. Pew Hispanic Center (2008) Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2006. Available at: http://pewhispanic.org/factsheets/factsheet.php? FactsheetID=35. Accessed on July 30, 2008. Pew Hispanic Center (2009) Mexican Immigrants in the United States, 2008, Fact Sheet. Available at: http://pewhispanic.org/factsheets/factsheet.php? FactsheetID=47. Accessed on April 15, 2009. M. J. Piore (1979) Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). S. Rippberger and K. Staudt (2003) Pledging Allegiance: Learning Nationalism at the El Paso-Juárez Border (New York: Routledge). J. Sánchez Garcia (2007) El retorno de menores migrantes a escuelas de Nuevo León: Trayectorias escolares, identidades transnacionales, dinámicas de inclusión/exclusión y trabajo docente, Unpublished dissertation (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León). L. Shepard and M. L Smith. (eds) (1989) Flunking Grades: Research and Policies on Retention (London: Falmer Press). D. Spener (1988) “Transitional Bilingual Education and the Socialization of Immigrants”, Harvard Educational Review, 58(2): 133–153. V. Zúñiga and E. T. Hamann (2006) “Going Home? Schooling in Mexico of Transnational Children”, Confines de relaciones internacionales y ciencia política, 2(4): 41–57.





V. Zúñiga and E. T. Hamann (2008) “Escuelas nacionales, alumnos transnacionales: La migración México/Estados Unidos como fenómeno escolar”, Estudios Sociológicos de El Colegio de Mexico, 26(76): 65–85. V. Zúñiga and E. T. Hamann (2009) “Complicating Transnational Student Taxonomies: Students in Mexico with U.S. School Experience”, Comparative Education Review, 53(3): 329–353. V. Zúñiga, E. T. Hamann, and J. Sánchez García (2009) Alumnos transnacionales: Las escuelas mexicanas frente a la globalización (Mexico, DF: Secretaria de Educación Pública).



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Children of Migrant Heritage and Equality of Opportunity in France Leslie J. Limage

Equality of opportunity has essentially been defined since the 1789 French Revolution as access to the same body of knowledge, culture, language, and societal institutions. The public space, such as schools, social services, and political institutions, is intended to protect all citizens, young and old, from nonsecular influences (la laicité) and diversity that may contribute to disunity. These two pillars of France’s unique and consistent approach to all minority, migrant, and long-standing French populations need to be well understood to fully appreciate the experience children of migrant heritage have in the country today. This chapter is an essay on this enduring philosophy of equality and the space occupied by children in France’s social fabric, particularly in educational opportunity. It is critically important to reassess this philosophy’s vitality as this approach has a clarity that has been seriously misunderstood in North American discourse and policies on multiculturalism and equality of opportunity. The chapter focuses on the intersection of this political philosophy, immigration heritage, and attention to diversity in France and in education. It begins with an overview of the political philosophy of equal opportunity and diversity. Examining educational responses and current debates, it focuses on the complexity of true elimination of all forms of discrimination in this context. The French approach contrasts with America’s decentralized, targeted, and disparate policies and legislative measures in education and social services for minority or migrant children. This chapter focuses on the larger social debate regarding the regressive influence of conspicuous religious or cultural expression in the public sphere, noting that US and French approaches appear quite different at the level of discourse, but not necessarily in practice. 253



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French national unity and equality for all citizens has long been served through a highly centralized government and education system. Until the French Revolution of 1789, France consisted of linguistically and culturally diverse regions with differing interests. Thus, revolutionaries and generations of administrators have held that only a highly centralized system could effectively redistribute the nation’s wealth to reduce regional disparities and special interests. Yet, in spite of 200 years of governmental centralization, imposition of the French language, and enormous efforts to promote a notion of a single state administered in an equal manner, modern France remains fundamentally diverse (De Certeau et al., 1975). French social scientists have demonstrated that centralization has not reduced social reproduction or reduced inequalities of educational opportunity and achievement (Baudelot and Establet, 1989; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1970). More recent studies have concluded that the disparities between resources allocated by the central state school system to different regions, combined with the relative poverty of local authorities, have yet to alter the conventional philosophical debate on the role of schooling (Dubet and Duru-Bellat, 2000). Decision-makers, intellectuals, trade unions, and school administrators appear to underestimate the evidence that material conditions of teaching and learning vary from one part of the country to another, or that the inequality of resources dominates school provision. Parents and pupils have little voice in determining the allocation of resources to schools or alternative ways of making use of existing measures (Ferreol, 1994). France’s “Declaration of Human Rights and those of the Citizen” of 1789 establishes “equality before the law” in the statement that “all men are born and remain free and equal under the law.” That notion of equality progressively came to mean that all citizens confronted by a similar situation should be treated identically under the law. This is a radically different approach than that progressively adopted in the United States since the civil rights movements of the 1960s promoting “positive discrimination” through federal targeted funding to achieve equality of opportunity. Nonetheless, the French approach did indeed evolve with changing times to promote a notion of social solidarity. Most of the post–World War II social welfare measures and those under debate today were developed with this later conception in mind. More recently, equity has begun to be viewed as “equality of condition” as well with



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critical implications for French schooling. Yet, the Government’s position remains extremely hesitant. The overriding principle that equality implies providing all citizens with the same instruction or access to schooling does little to address the issue of individual ability or interest in taking advantage of that instruction or body of learning. The French school system was founded in the latter part of the nineteenth century on the principle of equal access to the same education for all at the primary school level. It took nearly a century for the notion of positive discrimination to gain any ground whatsoever. Educational Priority Areas or Zones d’education prioritaires (ZEPs) based on the British model have been developed since the late 1970s. The rationale behind the creation of ZEP was that more educational resources in terms of teachers, ancillary staff, security personnel, or building repairs were needed for the particularly disadvantaged schools in designated zones (See Annex 1). But these measures are seen as temporary and are fraught with the risk of further stigmatizing or marginalizing the populations they are meant to serve. The argument in France remains that special measures must lead back to the mainstream view of equality: the ability to participate on the same footing with all other young people, regardless of socioeconomic origin; having the same access to the same body of knowledge. This philosophical position is critical to understanding the current debates on schooling and how French schools operate. It plays an essential role in the experience of children of first-, second-, or even third-generation immigrants in French schools and frames the discourse concerning the “integration” of communities of differing religious, geographic, or socioeconomic backgrounds.

Civics and civility through schooling: Responses to violence and diversity Although France’s philosophy of equal opportunity appears very different than that in North America (both Canada and the United States), it is tested by the same social phenomena. Social violence has been increasingly evident worldwide, and frequently inaccurately identified with disaffected immigrant or minority youth. Schools are either the scene of that violence or criticized for their inability to address its root causes effectively. A major crisis occurred in France in 1999 to which former Minister of Education Claude Allègre responded with a national action plan against violence in schools. He was forced to resign. Jack Lang, the next Minister, also made security the number one political issue with respect to education. Hugh Starkey (2000) already noted, “The school



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is one of the central institutions of the French Republic and violence directed against the school is, as well as a symptom of crisis, a direct attack on the State by its youngest citizens who are also its future.” However, Starkey, along with the author of this chapter, notes that the French Republic was founded on a particular notion of citizenship that still dominates—the undifferentiated citizen. A French citizen has quite distinct public and private lives. These spheres are not watertight, but they are separate. Starkey has argued that education for citizenship in the twenty-first century couldn’t be effective in outmoded institutions. He has written, “that Republican schools need therefore to be based not just on the transmission of a culturally hegemonic body of knowledge but on a recognition of and respect for the varied communities in which their pupils live. That in itself would constitute something of a revolution” (2000). National reports for government have been commissioned since the early 1990s on violence in schools or difficult schools (See Annex 2). A European Observatory of Violence and Schools under Eric Debarbieux argued that violence might be a major media issue but that its occurrence is relegated to a smaller number of schools and areas than appears to be the case. While recent events may not support Debarbieux’s 2002 view, he and this author would agree that the nature of institutional violence or the violence and lack of respect for pupils by the school system and its actors is rarely taken into account, much less the dimensions of direct, indirect, repressive, or alienating violence that education systems might perpetrate (as analyzed for example by Salmi, 2001). A growing number of pupils no longer have confidence in the school as a safe and effective place. Michel Wieviorka (1999) wrote that teachers and their unions also orchestrate perceptions of violence. Since French schools are structured so that teachers are not responsible for any pastoral care or discipline, they are loath to give up their free time for any noninstructional activity outside class time. They are least likely to provide a model of mutual respect for pupils. A few observers are sensitive to the lack of democracy and mutual respect in schools as institutions. Bernard Defrance (1993) and sociologists François Dubet and Marie Duru-Bellat (2000) are among the rare authors to raise such issues. Defrance argues that children, especially adolescents, attend schools where they have no voice. They have no independent authority to whom they can submit cases of perceived injustice at any level. School councils function to the advantage of teachers. Head teachers lack the authority and the will to arbitrate fairly and sanctions vary from teacher to teacher. Studies by Limage



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(2001) and Starkey (2000) draw attention to the republican origins of this apparently unfair situation in an attempt to look at the strengths and weaknesses of different models of schooling for the promotion of democracy. The French model appears assimilationist rather than integrationist. The basis of state education goes back to the French Revolution and involves initiation into a common culture through a single curriculum. It does not recognize difference. The curriculum is therefore undifferentiated, and although equal resources are to be allocated, the fact that they are allocated to a diverse group of pupils with diverse abilities living in unequal communities, with consequent inequality of outcome, remains largely undiscussed. Only in rethinking the ZEP has there been a discourse about greater community and family participation in the nonpedagogic aspects of school or differentiated teaching and learning (Simon and Solaux, 2000; also see Annex 2). There is enormous resistance to any notion of pluralism. The overriding concern remains a fear that society may break up into ghettos of religious, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic communities. This fear runs throughout all discussions of the role of diversity in French society. Long-standing as well as more recent minorities are reluctant to see themselves as distinct and the term “communautarisme” is basically a pejorative one shared by Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or other identifiable groups, such as those of immigrant origin (regardless of generation).

Immigration in France: An overview France has a long history of political and economic immigration. The pace and scale of immigration from former colonies and other Mediterranean Basin countries accelerated after World War II. Each group, depending on its origin, motivations for immigration, and similarity to French cultural norms and practices, has had a different experience. It is misleading to consider central and eastern European immigrants or Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese alongside immigrants from North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa. It is also quite misleading to assume that all immigrants of first, second, or third generation holding some Islamic cultural heritage have come to France under similar conditions or with similar expectations or have found a similar response to their needs and aspirations. A large research-based literature has developed, especially since the late 1960s, concerning immigration to France and other western European countries (see Lamchichi, 1999; Limage, 1984, 2000; Lorcerie, 2005; Minces, 1973; OECD-CERI, 1983).



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France’s declining demographic situation over the past hundred years, however, made it a more likely destination for both political and economic immigration than many other western Europe countries, until the mid-1970s. The need for an enlarged workforce led to a continuing growth of clandestine as well as official immigration until the early 1970s. Across nationalities and at risk of oversimplification, however, economic immigration usually meant that immigrants had a plan to return to their countries of origin. Among immigrant groups most likely to retain the dream of returning to countries of origin, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Italians have been most likely to foresee a possible return. Political and economic refugees from Central and Eastern Europe have been least likely to return. In a first period, North African (Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria) and sub-Saharan African immigrants came with plans to return and forward earnings to families left behind. As economic and political conditions have deteriorated, the plan to return among immigrants has seemed less and less likely. With the onset of economic crisis in the early 1970s, most European countries drastically curtailed immigration. France was among the last to place such restrictions and confine immigration to family reunification (especially among North Africans and, to a lesser extent, subSaharan Africans from former colonies). France was seen as the most open compared with other European countries, especially Germany, for both immigration and naturalization. Germany’s guest worker policy in the 1970s was a model of exclusionary immigration policy. Sociologists easily discovered that immigrants were most likely to seek permanent residence in countries that welcomed them (at least at official level) and least likely to do so where both reception and conditions of stay were most restrictive (Césari, 1997a, b; Granotier, 1970; Limage, 1984, 2001). Both countries of origin and countries of immigration have attempted to regulate movements of populations with varying degrees of success. As deteriorating political and economic conditions have continued on a global scale, these attempts have taken the form of incentive measures (sums of money to encourage voluntary departures) and more spectacularly in very recent times in France with forced departures for clandestine immigrants or those whose residence and work permits have expired. Countries of origin have long sought ways to maintain contacts with their expatriate populations without encouraging return migrations. These means have included formal agreements with the host country to organize language and culture classes, associations for mutual support and cultural celebrations, and, to some extent, assistance in developing places of worship.



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After the events of May 1968 in France, the French left wing discovered the most visible disenfranchised population: the immigrant worker. Numerous associations and solidarity groups were created to “accompany” this heterogeneous population. The entire movement for adult literacy (called alphabétisation de travailleurs migrants) quickly developed to promote what was, in fact, French as a second language. This discovery of literacy issues among the immigrant population created both a service and a disservice. For the next 15 years (until creation of the interministerial body for national literacy, the Groupe inerministeriel permanent de lutte contre l’illettrisme, in 1983), all literacy difficulties were officially associated with immigrants, especially North Africans, and no attention was given to the broader French public (Limage, 1975, 1986). The service consisted of a series of networks of training for adult immigrants to acquire basic written and spoken French. Initially, the French Ministry of Education took some responsibility but quickly returned it to nonprofit and profit associations. The finance for most of these programs came from a fund composed of social welfare benefits withheld from mainly male immigrant workers whose families had not rejoined them in France. As family reunification became the main source of official immigration from the mid-1970s onward, countries of origin of immigrants entered into bilateral agreements with France to offer instruction in “mother tongues” or official first languages of children of immigrants. The French Ministry of Education resolutely insisted that these classes were not their responsibility, and governments of countries of origin, eager to demonstrate their continued links with their expatriate populations, financed teachers and rented space in public schools in order to provide such instruction outside class time (Limage, 1979; OECD-CERI, 1983). Thus, children whose families wished them to maintain some form of contact with the languages and cultures of origin attended classes outside regular school time with no cooperation from French teachers or involvement of French children in the classes. For the most part, this situation has not radically changed. While some initial reception classes are maintained for French language learning, grade repetition and other more traditional means are still the primary measures available to bring non-French-speaking children to an “educational standard.” By and large, children of immigrant origin who underachieve are treated similarly to all children—with a somewhat greater likelihood of



Contours of educational responses to immigrant heritage young people: Recent history


grade repetition or orientation toward the shorter less prestigious forms of secondary education. The public school maintains its primacy concerning legitimate knowledge and the means to transmit it in the name of republican ideals of neutrality, secularity, and equality. The notion of individualized instruction, cooperative learning, or making the school more responsive of the child has met with little response as diversity in need, interest, or ability remains an out-of-school matter. It should be stressed, though, that children of immigrant heritage are not more likely to underachieve in school than young people of similar socioeconomic background. There are issues of recent immigration and diversity of family situations, but by and large distinctions made at the early stages of family reunification in the 1980s onward are no longer visible. This chapter does not go into a targeted discussion of traditionally migratory people (the Roma), trafficked or clandestine migrant young people, and their educational experience in France. Measurement and special measures are still approximate (Langouet et al., 2008). The crises of French public education in recent years are much less to be understood in terms of lack of response to diversity than to rigidities that ill-prepare young people of all origins to find their place in an increasingly difficult social and economic context. And, as with the United States to some extent, each succeeding national government announces “reforms” intended more for the voting public than for knowledgeable change that can provide lasting solutions to intractable problems. In any case, any initiative to introduce a form of “positive discrimination” along the Anglo-Saxon model meets with serious resistance by educators, administrators, and the public. A current example is that of creating a direct link between secondary schools in the ZEP and the elite grandes écoles and the prestigious Institut des Sciences Politiques. These higher education institutions are outside the public university system, the latter offering nearly open entry to all young people with a baccalauréat (secondary school leaving diploma). Several years ago, the “Sciences Po,” as it is known, established direct contact with ZEP schools to enable the most promising students to attend without taking the competitive entry examination. Most recently, the French Government has tried to extend this experiment to the grandes écoles so that it can aim for 30 percent of entrants on that basis with scholarships. The Conference of Grandes Écoles opposes a quota system and insists that young people from ZEP (with a majority of disadvantaged youth) be tutored to take the competitive examination alongside all others, rather than be given advantages that create discrimination against young people who must



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Strengthening secular principles: The “Islamic headscarf” issue Since 1989, the reaction of school authorities, parents, pupils, and the larger French community to the wearing of headscarves in school by a handful of girls of Muslim origin has created a major political and social debate. The controversy was resolved by legislation in 2004. However, the “Islamic headscarf” issue in France has been a highly politicized one both at home and abroad. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the French state and its public schools are seen as the repositories of neutrality, secularity, and equality before the law of all citizens. Schools are intended to form pupils to become responsible citizens through access to the same knowledge. There should be no outside influence by parents, community groups, or political or religious organizations. Religion is considered a very private matter, and proselytism is absolutely forbidden in the institutions of the French Republic. All the more, teachers and other civil servants are bound to adhere strictly to these republican values. Thus, in 1989 when a few adolescent girls in several cities in France began wearing headscarves to school at the instigation of their families, the reaction was immediate. In addition to wearing the headscarves, the girls refused to participate in physical education and were supported in their initiatives by Islamic associations. The reaction of principals and teachers alike was to request the removal of the headscarves and the insistence that the girls participate like all other pupils in obligatory school classes. The refusal to remove headscarves and/or participate led in most instances to the girls being sent home. In a few cases, they were temporarily grouped in school libraries. The first demonstrations for and against tolerance of headscarves in public schools were and remained intense. Initially, the State Council (Conseil d’Etat) rendered a judgment that reminded the French public that it is the civil servants of the state who must remain neutral in all their official responsibilities, not the clients or pupils. Religious affiliation may be discreetly displayed as long as there is no proselytism or disturbance of public order. The State Council left it to the Minister of Education to advise schools how to deal with the phenomenon. The Minister reaffirmed the principles of neutrality and the



sit the exams in the usual way. They also fear that the quality of the instruction offered in these schools will be lowered to meet the abilities of less-qualified students (Floch, 2009).


secular nature of the school system. He asked, however, that each school principal and the teachers handle the cases on an individual basis. He advised discussion and consultation with the girls and their families in order to reach a negotiated solution. Unfortunately, French school administrators, especially principals, are unused to authority over the teaching staff in French schools, let alone dealing with sensitive issues of cultural and religious conviction (Allaire and Frank, 1995; Gruson, 1978). The decision making had, however, been placed in their hands. As a result, over the next 10 years a number of cases reached the courts of girls who had been expelled from school for refusing to remove their headscarves in class. By and large, the courts overturned the expulsions unless the refusal to remove the scarf was accompanied by a refusal to participate in physical education classes or were found to be associated with protest by outside organizations (Kessler and Bernard, 1997; Lorcerie, 2005). Until its resolution by law in 2004, the conflict was seen from two perspectives in France. The first issue of religious neutrality and the secular public school space are fundamental to the Constitution and firmly upheld. The other, and perhaps overriding, issue is more sociological. The status of women in Islamic countries and cultures predates Islam and reflects a strong patriarchal order. International conflict and internal conflict, especially the civil war in Algeria where women and children have been victims of rape, massacre, and humiliation, have a very strong influence on French public opinion. The wearing of the headscarf has been interpreted as a sign of girls’ and women’s lack of equal rights compared to men. Above all, it appears to threaten the hard-won rights for women since, for the most part, North African women have been less frequently veiled, cloistered, or subjected to Islamic law than Islamic women in countries of the Machrek, Sudan, and sub-Saharan Africa. Until recently, all three Maghreb countries maintain the Family Code based on sharia. In response, French public opinion remains resolutely against young women of French nationality being subject to constraint in the French Republic. It is understandably complex to determine whether the young woman is wearing the scarf voluntarily, because of religious conviction, under force, or as an expression of her complex cultural identities. Many French women’s groups have also given strong support to the efforts of adolescents and young women of North African origin seeking protection from the violence inflicted on them by North African and sub-Saharan African boys in suburban gangs. The association “Neither prostitutes nor submissive” (Ni Putes ni soumises) gained especially strong support when girls who had been attacked and raped



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organized themselves and demonstrated throughout France. One aspect related to the headscarf issue is that young women in these suburbs dress as conservatively as possible to try to deflect the violence of which they are daily victims. They talk about adopting conservative “Islamic” dress or wearing loose long clothing to distract attention from themselves. Also, cases of young girls being kidnapped, raped, burned, and even murdered have been reported (Creaux, 2006). Matters came to a head in the autumn of 2003. Starting in the spring of that year, President Jacques Chirac had already called for a law to forbid the wearing of any conspicuous religious signs in schools, including the headscarf. It became a hotly debated political issue although it had not been at the forefront for the previous five years. Some 1500 cases of girls who had tried to wear headscarves in school were reported to the Ministry of Education (Lorcerie, 2005). The cases had been handled on an individual basis. However, it was increasingly perceived that headscarves in other public places of work were becoming an issue. The President had commissioned a report from Jean-Louis Debré that was made public on November 4, 2003, calling for a law forbidding any conspicuous sign of religious or political affiliation in public schools. Then, the Stasi Commission reported to the President on December 11, 2003, with a series of quite specific measures. This commission was composed of a culturally, religiously, and intellectually diverse group of eminent figures. It recommended that all conspicuous signs of religious or political affiliation be banned from schools, explicitly mentioning a large cross, the headscarf, or the kippa, though it also proposed that discreet symbols, such as medals, small crosses, Stars of David, hands of Fatima, or small replicas of the Koran, be allowed. Positions regarding a formal law were diverse. Teachers and school administrators strongly supported the law for two reasons. Firstly, they defended the neutrality of the school space. Secondly, they were adamant that they should not be confronted with the case-by-case negotiation with individuals that they no longer felt qualified nor mandated to undertake. The CFCM (French Council for Islam) had just been created with enormous difficulty. Its constituent organizations were far from unanimity. However, they were generally opposed to the adoption of a new law. The CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France, Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions) generally supported the law, including the forbidding of the kippa in public schools. It was not seen as a threat to observant Jewish families, who would have chosen a private Jewish school for their children if need be in any case. The French Jewish community has been a highly assimilated



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one that is generally at ease with the maintenance of religion in the private sphere. International attention to the French “Islamic headscarf affair” may have influenced support for—if not the actual adoption of—the law. Most countries of the Arab world took very strong positions against the French law (Lorcerie, 2005). Other countries from western Europe and Canada demonstrated mixed and often incredulous reactions. However, French public opinion was ready for a clear position by the government. The Law no. 204-228 of March 15, 2004, was adopted and took force at the beginning of the following school year, September 2004. The law is brief and states the following: “In primary schools, as well as lower and upper secondary schools, it is forbidden to wear signs or clothing by which students ‘conspicuously’ show religious affiliation. It is recalled that the internal school regulations require dialogue with students prior to any disciplinary action being taken” (author’s translation). The law of course only applies to French public schools. It was adopted to the general satisfaction of all political parties but with mixed views by associations and nongovernmental bodies of different persuasions. The diverse Muslim organizations including the CFCM were mobilizing to protest and resist at the beginning of the school year 2004. However, during the summer, the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq threatened with execution if the French law was not repealed radically changed French Muslim attitudes. Delegations of French Muslims went to Iraq to appeal on the journalists’ behalf. Other Arab leaders in the Middle East and in Iraq appealed for the journalists’ lives. The French Muslim community called on families to avoid confrontation at the beginning of the school year. The headscarf issue lost the mobilizing power it had provisionally held.

The “burqa” and French national identity debates in 2009 While the headscarf issue is of direct concern to this chapter’s focus on children of immigrant heritage and education in France, the more recent debate about full-body covering or the “burqa” is somewhat less relevant. Nonetheless, it needs to be mentioned as the forceful defense of women’s equality by the French in this respect has been criticized by President Obama in his Cairo address to the Muslim world in June



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2009. From the author’s perspective, this is another instance of a wellintentioned but poorly conceived American policy statement by the new administration (Obama, 2009). As a word of explanation, the “burqa” is a traditional full-body covering for women primarily within the Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan. Women look out through a lattice at eye-level. The “niqab” (referred to by President Obama) refers to full-body covering worn almost exclusively in Saudi Arabia involving a flowing black garment that leaves a slit for the eyes and includes black gloves. Neither form of covering had been seen in France except occasionally by traveling Saudis or other Middle Eastern visitors. France’s Muslim populations of very diverse origins and practices have always been very secular. These populations are primarily of immigration heritage from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and have never practiced female seclusion or full-body covering. Only in the past 5 years have a few female European converts to Islam and a handful of women making political statements through full- or partial-body covering appeared in the most violent and economically disadvantaged suburbs of Paris or Marseilles (Mandraud, 2009). With the rise of attention on international terrorism and the growing economic crisis, the Sarkozy government created a commission on the advisability of establishing legislation to forbid the wearing of the “burqa” (Le Monde, 2009; Sénat, 2009). That and a recent national debate launched by the government on the nature of French national identity have led to a polarization of public opinion. It now seems a distinct possibility that France will adopt such a law regarding the public sphere. It is presented both as a security issue and as one of women’s equality. However, President Obama, in his attempt to reach out to the Arab Muslim world in his speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009, criticized France in particular and certain other European countries more generally for denying Muslim women’s “right” to cover themselves. He stated, “Likewise it is important for western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit—for instance by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism” (Obama, 2009). He further pledged US legal protection for women to do so, completely ignoring the multiple reasons why women are forced to cover themselves in this way, the extent of “choice” involved, and the implications for their full participation in society. At best, the new administration position appears incoherent and, at worst, fairly unconvincing in terms of effective respect for diversity and equality of opportunity. And from



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an educator’s point of view, he compounded his error by solely promoting women’s literacy, ignoring the fact that women from various elites throughout the Arab region and Muslim world may well be highly educated, but few exercise any political participation in their societies. This chapter concludes with a necessarily brief review of current dilemmas and tensions in France and the relation to complex religious and cultural identities. The discussion of Islamic identities—as with all other identities of children of immigrant heritage—has been situated in the unique French unitary approach to equality, the role of the state, and diversity. This approach may be shaken but it is not seriously questioned by political leaders or the general public in France.

Current complexities and tensions: Concluding remarks The secular school space: What can it contain? There is little doubt that the French secular school space will continue to be a place where constitutional principles remain unchallenged. There is no real public support for creating a “multicultural” environment as in the American or British models. This position is supported by individuals and groups representing all religious or cultural interests in France as well. This chapter has looked at how some of the powerful external pressures and passions have actually been mediated by the French school system and other public institutions. This is not to say that the response has led to effective integration according to existing French republican values of “liberty, equality and fraternity.” However, at each moment of crisis over the past nine years, including the “Islamic headscarf issue” examined in some detail in this chapter demonstrates, there is a return to a shared view of the public and private sphere. The discussion of “le fait réligieux à l’école” will continue, but it will not lead to a place for any form of religious instruction or proselytism within schools. Recognition of the French colonial heritage in the public sphere and in education All countries have been dealing with the way they present their own history to the next generation of youth. Officially, France has progressively recognized within the past 10 years: (a) its own role in collaboration with the Nazi regime in the deportation of its Jewish population; (b) that the independence of Algeria effectively took place during a war, the Guerre d’Algérie or War of Algeria; (c) that France did engage in torture



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during that period; (d) that the harkis (Algerians who fought alongside the French military) did make a major contribution to France. In 2005, when the recognition of the harki took place, an article in the law also stipulated that French schools should teach the positive contribution of French colonialism. That article was protested so massively that it was finally withdrawn from the law. While much has been written about the bias of one sort or another in the French history curriculum over the years, the protests in 2005 around this article of law bear witness to the fact that the French curriculum is still developed on principles that go back to Condorcet in 1792. The school will convey a body of knowledge that is revised over time but will constitute legitimate truth and be taught with the critical tools to analyze that truth. It will not be subject to the “political” passions of legislators. Violence in France and international violence: A security approach? Since 2000, violence in society and schools has been increasingly visible. An earlier section of this chapter has already raised some of the dilemmas around treating violence in schools as a security issue. However, the government approach has leaned primarily in that direction. (It could be reasonably argued that the French approach is not different than that taken by other European countries, let alone other countries globally.) In the foreseeable future, it is hard to see the contours of real alternative policies. Several major reports since 2006 address the issues from complementary poles. On March 8, 2006, the US State Department issued its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in which France is found to have increasing problems with: excessive use of force by law enforcement officers; overcrowded prisons; lengthy pretrial detention; protracted trial proceedings; anti-Muslim incidents; anti-Semitic incidents; societal violence against women; child abuse and child marriage; trafficking in persons; and discrimination based on ethnic origin. All of these categories refer in one way or another to the situation of minorities, including those of immigrant heritage background. Another report is that of the International Crisis Group on “France and Its Muslims: Riots, Djihadism and De-politicization” (2006). This report argued that Muslims in France are highly individualistic and find neither traditional political parties nor the various Muslims associations that have emerged or evolved in recent years of real relevance to their needs or current aspirations, especially the most disaffected among them. They direct their protests against the state but also seek redress of wrongs from that same



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state rather than through community or religion-based groups. The violence of autumn 2005 was against public property (schools, hospitals, community centers, public transportation) but was neither contained nor fomented by Islamic organizations or movements. Regularly over the years and especially on New Year’s Eve, French police prepare for the large-scale destruction of cars by rampaging young people in disadvantaged suburbs. That scale of violence was virtually stable at the end of 2009. The tensions discussed in this chapter are therefore likely to be reinforced in the foreseeable future. It is difficult to see how the education system can become more responsive and flexible in an increasingly polarized environment, particularly when that system has always been conceived to protect youth from outside influence and create a “safe haven” that has become more elusive. Religious and cultural identities in France: “Communautarisme” or integration for the future? In conclusion, the French model has its greatest strengths and weaknesses in its relatively unique approach to internal diversity and promotion of mutual respect within individual religious and cultural identities. This chapter has attempted to demonstrate that, even under crisis, the undifferentiated citizen is a model that receives near-universal support. The very term “community” is widely rejected. Even most dispassionate analyses of the violence taking place since the autumn of 2005 reject simplistic identification. The gangs that are so visible in French suburbs appear to act with a combination of complex motivations, of which the ethnic, religious, or “community” origin is a definite but not sole part of the story. Young people of immigrant heritage in these gangs are generally of economically disadvantaged households. Children of immigrant heritage that come from better economically and socially integrated backgrounds are increasingly visible in government, business, sports, and the arts. The doubt subsists, however, as to the extent to which equal opportunity through the current school system is actually contributing to reducing inequalities. Unwillingness or complete refusal to objectively take inequalities into account in the education system carries grave risk for future generations in France, but the North American multicultural education models do not appear more successful from this side of the Atlantic. On the contrary, the refusal to adopt adequate social services for all, including health care in the United States, undermines the latter’s credibility to offer equal opportunity to its own children of immigrant heritage, indeed to all children.



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M. Allaire and M. T. Frank (eds) (1995) “Les politiques de l’éducation de la France de la maternelle au baccalauréat”, Retour aux texts (Paris: La documentation française). C. Baudelot and R. Establet (1989) Le niveau monte. Réfutation d’une vieille idée concernant la prétendue décadence de nos écoles (Paris: Editions du Seuil). P. Bourdieu and J. C. Passeron (1970) La reproduction (Paris: Editions de Minuit). J. Césari (1997a) Etre musulman en France aujourd’hui (Paris: Hachette). J. Césari (1997b) Faut-il avoir peur de l’Islam? (Paris: Presse de Sciences Po). P. Creaux (2006) “Jamal Derrar a été condamné à vingt-cinq ans de réclusion criminelle pour avoir brûlé Sohane”, Le Monde, 11, April 9–10. E. Debarbieux (1996) La violence en milieu scolaire 1. Etat des lieux (Paris: ESF). M. De Certeau, J. Michel, R. Dominique, and J. Revel (1975) Une politique de la langue: La Revolution française et les patois (Paris: Gallimard). B. Defrance (1993) Sanctions et discipline à l’école (Paris: Syros). F. Dubet and M. Duru-Bellat (2000) L’hypocrisie scolaire: Pour un collège enfin démocratique (Paris: Seuil). G. Ferreol (ed.) (1994) Integration et exclusion dans la société francaise contemporaine (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille). B. Floc’h (2009) “Les grandes écoles opposées aux quotas de boursiers”, Le Monde, 10, January 5. B. Granotier (1970) Les travailleurs immigrés en France (Paris: Editions François Maspéro). P. Gruson (1978) L’état enseignant (Paris: Mouton). International Crisis Group (2006) “La France face à ses Musulmans: Emeutes, jidhadisme et dépolitisation”, Europe Report No. 172, March 9. D. Kessler and P. Bernard, Philippe (1997) “Le Conseil d’Etat et le ‘foulard islamique”, Cahiers français (May–June), 63–64. G. Koubi and G. J. Guglielmi (eds) (2000) L’égalité des chances: Analyses, évolutions, perspectives (Paris: La Découverte). A. Lamchichi (1999) Islam et musulmans de France: Pluralisme, laicité et citoyenneté (Paris: Harmattan). G. Langouet, D. Groux, and L. J. Limage (2008) “France” in L. J. Limage (ed.) The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children’s Issues Worldwide. Europe Volume (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press), 137–160. Le Monde (2005) “Zones d’éducation prioritaire: L’heure du bilan”, September 12. Available at: http://www.association-ozp.net/article.php3?id_article=3222. Accessed on April 10, 2010 Le Monde (2009) “Le port de la burqa en débat”, June 24. Thematic file published on Web site. Available at: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2009/06/ 18/des-deputes-ouvrent-le-debat-sur-le-port-de-la-burqa_1208273_3224.html. Accessed on April 18, 2010. L. Limage (1975) “Alphabétisation et culture: Cas d’etudes: l’Angleterre, le Brésil, la France et le Viet Nam”, Unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of Paris). L. Limage (1979) “Education for Linguistic and Cultural Minorities. The Case of France”, study prepared for the OECD-CERI project on the Financing, Organization and Governance of Education for Special Populations OECDCERI (Paris).



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L. Limage (1984) “Young Migrants of the Second Generation in Europe: Education and Labour Market Insertion Prospects”, International Migration, 22(4): 367–387. L. Limage (1986) “Adult Illiteracy Policy in Industrialized Countries”, Comparative Education Review, (30): 50–72. L. Limage (2000) “Education and Muslim Identity: The Case of France”, Comparative Education, 36(1): 73–94. L. Limage (ed.) (2001) Democratizing Education and Educating Democratic Citizens: International and Historic Perspectives (New York: Routledge/Falmer). F. Lorcerie (2003) “L’école et le défi ethnique: Education et intégration”, INRP, ESF (Paris). F. Lorcerie (ed.) (2005) La politisation du voile en France, en Europe et dans le monde arabe (Paris: Harmattan). I. Mandraud (2009) “La police estime marginal le port de la burqa”, Le Monde, 8, July 28. J. Minces (1973) Les travailleurs étrangers en France (Paris: Editions Seuil). B. Obama (2009) “Speech to the Muslim World, delivered at Cairo University”, Cairo, June 4, reproduced on U.S. Government Web site. Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov and New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/ 2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html. Accessed on April 18, 2010. OECD-CERI (1983) The Education of Minority Groups: An Enquiry into Problems and Practices of Fifteen Countries (Paris: OECD). J. Salmi (2001) Violence, Democracy and Education: An Analytic Framework, revised manuscript from Violence and Democratic Society: New Approaches to Human Rights (London: Zed Press). Sénat (2009) “Etude de législation comparée no. 201—Octobre 2009. Le port de la burqa dans les lieux publics”, French Senate. Available at: http://www.senat.fr/ lc/lc201/lc.201_mono.html/. Accessed on April 18, 2010. J. Simon and G. Solaux (2000) “L’école et l’égalité des chances”, in G. Koubi and G.J. Gugliemi (eds) L’égalité des chances: Analyses, evolutions, perspectives (Paris: La Découverte), 137–154. H. Starkey (2000) “Education for Citizenship: Reinventing the French Republic”, Unpublished manuscript (Open University). B. Stasi (2004) Laicité et République: Rapport au Président de la République (Paris: La documentation Française). United States Department of State (2006) “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2005 in France”, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Available at: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100559.htm. Accessed on April 18, 2010. M. Wieviorka (1999) Violence en France (Paris: Seuil).

Annex 1 Educational Priority Zones (ZEP) Structures: Educational priority is based on the principle of positive discrimination. There are two general structures for specific aid in France: educational priority zones (zones d’éducation prioritaires—ZEP), created in



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1982, and the networks for priority education (réseaux d’éducation prioritaire—REP), implemented in 1999. At the beginning of the year 2005, there were 707 ZEPs (compared to 363 in 1982) and 911 REPs. These networks involve sharing resources and coordination of pedagogical practices primarily within a ZEP. They often include schools considered better off or others no longer recognized as ZEP. Content: Educational priority action consists of additional resources and several objectives: (a) encouragement of enrolment of children at age 2 in preschool (maternelles, normal age: 3); (b) increased civics education; (c) closer ties with families; and (d) closer ties of the school with the neighborhood. Means: Positive discrimination is measured by the number of teaching posts and instructional time. ZEP schools have about 17 percent more teachers, or approximately 8300 teaching posts in the lower secondary schools (collèges). Numbers: Some 15 percent of primary school pupils (nearly one million) and 18 percent of lower secondary students (about 47,000) are included in ZEP (while in 1982, the numbers were respectively 8 percent and 10 percent ) in some 7700 schools. Children of bluecollar workers or unemployed are overrepresented in these schools. More than 60 percent of pupils are considered to be from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, compared with 39 percent outside the ZEP. Effectiveness in question: Research and evaluation concerning over 20 years of this form of positive discrimination have not demonstrated the effectiveness of ZEPs’ methods and resources. After the violence in French suburbs of major cities in the autumn 2005, governmental response has been to propose either eliminating this form of positive discrimination or concentrating it on schools with the 5 percent of pupils experiencing greatest difficulty, thereby reducing the number of schools actually benefiting from ZEP status (Le Monde, September 12, 2005).

Annex 2 Violence in Schools Reported cases of School Violence in 2005 (Date chosen because of riots that followed in the autumn 2005) In November and December 2005, compared with 2004, the Ministry of Education statistics reported a slight decline in armed physical violence (3 percent) in serious threats and insults and theft and attempted theft



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in secondary schools (8 percent). Some 300 motivated racist acts and 50 anti-Semitic acts were reported, representing a decline of 35 percent for the 2004 period. (Other data sources reflect increasing racist and antiSemitic acts in the first quarter of 2006 and other violence. The trend has been increasing throughout 2009. One explanatory factor is that fear of reprisal prevents victims from reporting such attacks). Urban violence strongly increased, however, for the last 2 months of 2005 and until the present in the form of insecurity and destruction of public and private property; 310 cases of attempted setting fire were registered as against 125 in 2004; 125 cases of effective destruction against 30 in 2004; 670 cases of stoning or attacks with other incendiary devices versus 440 in 2004. Destruction of vehicles within schools increased more moderately by 17 percent. Violence remains rather concentrated: five percent of schools reported a quarter of the total number of incidents; 75 percent of these schools were lower secondary; and more than 54 percent were located in ZEPs. Violence in Schools: French policy measures With the increase of perceived societal violence over the past 15 years, French national policy response for schools has been generally along three lines, with a fourth response more recently enacted: Increase in nonteaching school personnel: The Ministry of Education response to increasing perceived violence in and around schools began in 1992 with recruitment of new types of auxiliary personnel. Jack Lang, Minister in 1992, placed some 20,000 young people undergoing the then obligatory French national military service in schools in the most difficult areas (termed diplomatically, sensitive or sensibles). The next Minister, François Bayrou, recruited several hundred further nonteaching personnel to supervise the playground, corridors, and other routine tasks. In 1997, some 10,000 assistant educators (aide-éducateurs) were assigned to “violence zones.” In 2002, the government discontinued the assistant educators and created another type of nonteaching personnel on a smaller scale. An educational response: Since there is considerable research demonstrating the link between disaffection with school and recourse to violence, the French Government has undertaken limited measures to reinterest some disaffected young people. In 1997, the Ministers of Education, Ségolène Royal and then Claude Allègre, created more flexible classes or workshops to try to respond to children who had dropped-out or were frequently truant. Subsequently, Francois Fillon increased the number of these experimental classes. Jack Lang in 2001 and Xavier



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Darcos in 2002 considered setting up boarding schools for the most difficult situations. A police response: Since 1992, the Ministry of Education signed several agreements with the police and justice systems to improve their cooperation. In 2004, Nicolas Sarkozy had considered assigning a policeman or gendarme to each of the schools where the need was expressed. This controversial measure was never implemented. In January 2005, Dominique de Villepin (Minister of the Interior at the time) undertook a major operation to increase school security with the assistance of some 8000 police. This measure was severely criticized by teachers, parents, and secondary school students alike. Precarious employment and equality of opportunity—a controversy: Following the waves of suburban violence in autumn 2005, Prime Minister de Villepin enacted legislation to lower the working age for parttime apprenticeships and more flexible first contracts for 18–25 year olds (contrats de première embauche) as part of a law on equality of opportunity with a package of measures that included sanctioning parents by nonpayment of their social welfare benefits if they did not ensure their children attend school; he also created greater legal sanctions for incivility and certain measures concerning social cohesion. The logic with liberalization of employment conditions was that young disaffected youth would be better engaged in a work environment starting at 14 (rather than 16), and that employers would more readily hire young people if they knew they could fire them rapidly and without any form of recourse. All trade unions, teachers unions, parent associations, student groups, and business opposed this measure and, after large-scale strikes, demonstrations, and occupation of universities, the latter was withdrawn in April 2006. A revised version has reappeared as youth unemployment increased in 2009.



Leslie J. Limage

The Way Forward: Conclusions and Recommendations

At the beginning of the second decade of the 3rd millennium, the global forces that have propelled the increasing pace of human mobility show no signs of abating. In 2005, there were some 191 million international migrants worldwide, nearly two-and-a-half times the figure in 1965 (UN DESA, 2006). In 2008, only three years later, the number of international migrants was already in excess of 200 million (IOM, 2008: 2). Migration has indeed become a ubiquitous global phenomenon shaping the economic, social, and cultural life of every country. Both international and internal migration patterns are becoming increasingly complex as they connect individuals and communities in an expanding variety of personal circumstances and social arrangements. These migration dynamics have stimulated an unprecedented growth in international migration research, but relatively little scholarship has focused specifically on child migration. Although the proportion of child migrants varies across geographic regions and social contexts, overall, about a third of all migrants from developing countries are estimated to be 18 years of age or younger (UNFPA, 2005). The proportion is even higher among forced migrants, with children and adolescents under 18 years of age representing up to 45 percent of the total population in many refugee communities (UNHCR, 2002). The implications of this growing trend for research, policy, and advocacy on migrant children warrant continued in-depth analysis. Children and Migration: At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability is a step in that direction. In this final chapter of the volume we use lessons stemming from the case studies of child migration around the world to discuss salient research gaps and make recommendations aimed at assisting migration practitioners in designing policies and practices to enhance the well-being of migrant children. 274



˙ Elzbieta M. Go´zdziak and Marisa O. Ensor

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Accounts about children and adolescents on the move have initially been informed by humanitarian narratives (Boyden and de Berry, 2004). These narratives have focused mainly on protection of child migrants from harm and provision of needed resources, and less on participation (Bluebond-Langner and Korbin, 2007). These narratives are often based on a single universal definition of childhood enshrined in international humanitarian and human rights law and ignore the fact that there is no universal experience or understanding of childhood. They conceptualize “child migrants,” “child laborers,” “trafficked children,” and “child soldiers” solely as products of adult abuse and presuppose that children are dependent, exploited, and powerless (Rosen, 2007: 297). These common assumptions of child migration as an inevitably abusive and exploitative phenomenon reflect prevalent Western views of children as incapable of independent economic or political agency. The growing body of research on children and migration, including chapters found in this volume, contradict many of these assumptions. They illustrate how lives of migrant children across the globe are impacted by the confluence of prevalent geopolitical circumstances. Children travel, live, and work in multiple worlds situated at the crossroads of global processes and local realities. The various push and pull factors of migration are not mutually exclusive. Like their adult counterparts, children migrate for a variety of reasons that often defy typologies and discrete categorizations. In contrast to humanitarian narratives, recent scholarship on child migration, particularly studies rooted in anthropology, has recognized a multiplicity of constructions of childhood defined not only by age, but also by cultural understandings of gender, ethnicity, history, and local and global contexts (Amit-Talai and Wulff, 1995; Jenks, 1996; Rosen, 2008; Swartzman, 1996). Anthropological evidence reveals children as active players and participants in society (Bluebond-Langner, 1978; Hirschfeld, 2002; Prout and James, 1990; Stephens, 1995). Many migration scholars concur (Rosen, 2007; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2001; Watters, 2008). Contrary to humanitarian accounts that portray displaced children as powerless and vulnerable members of society, who can only “believe, or feel, or sense” (Machel, 2001) but “do not know, understand, judge, or decide” (Rosen, 2007: 299), migration narratives emphasize their agency, resourcefulness, and ability to cope with challenging circumstances (Panter-Brick, 2002; Whitehead and Hashim, 2005). As evidenced by research included in this volume (see in particular Go´zdziak; Terrio; and Hoffman), policy-making on and practice with




Conclusions and Recommendations

migrant children do not readily recognize the value of culture-specific discourses of childhoods and context-specific interventions aimed at facilitating the well-being of child migrants. Collaboration between migration scholars and child advocates is crucial to understand the cultural context in which they are operating and the cultural backgrounds of the children they are serving. Too often well-meaning policy makers and service providers do not consider migrant children as agents who actively negotiate their changing circumstances and do not provide them with opportunities to express their own views. As a result interventions intended to offer support to child migrants may diminish their coping skills when indigenous strategies are replaced by less effective and culturally inappropriate Western coping techniques (Jeppsson and Hjern, 2005: 79). Meaningful participation of migrant children is essential in research, policy making, and practice. Following the 1989 UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), “listening to children’s voices has become a powerful and pervasive mantra for activists and policy makers worldwide. However, despite such representations of the ‘voices of children,’ children themselves may, nonetheless, continue to find their voices silenced, suppressed, or ignored in their everyday lives” (James, 2007: 261). Writing about unaccompanied migrant children, Chris Nugent asserts that migrant children’s voices, experiences, and perspectives have rarely been directly consulted to explicitly inform and shape legislative proposals or larger policy decisions by the United States Congress or agencies responsible for them. He attributes this lack of listening to children to “protective paternalism predicated on an unspoken assumption that children are incapable of making rational, effective contributions to larger questions about policy,” “adult (. . .) fear of deep listening and direct learning from the children based on their unique, individual experiences,” or simply to lack of time and resources to engage children in policy reflection (Nugent, 2006: 220). Several chapters in this volume highlight this problem as well. Whatever the reasons, it seems that an attempt to remedy this situation would be worthwhile, both for the affected children and for the practitioners. Acknowledging that migrant children do not speak with one single voice, this volume bears testimony to the enormous diversity and multifaceted character of child migration. This complexity offers a remarkable potential for scholarly advancement, but it also poses difficulties to practitioners and policy makers seeking standardized responses to child migration issues. Indeed, building fruitful bridges between researchbased evidence and action on behalf of children is one of the most



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pressing challenges facing those working to improve the lives of migrant children worldwide. As a case in point, the need to strengthen the link between knowledge, policy, and practice on children, including migrant children, was the central theme of a recent conference on “Children’s Rights at a Crossroads” held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 20–December 2, 2009. The conference was convened by Childwatch International, The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), and the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the CRC.1 Protection, provision, and participation, the three interlocking principles of the CRC, are indispensible in addressing— in scholarship, policy making, and practice—the coexistence of agency and vulnerability in the lives of migrant children. These three Ps are important, but the fourth P—partnerships—has proven to be equally critical. This theme was explored at the above-referenced conference, which comprised several “roundtable working sessions,” including one on child migration and displacement. Drawing on the Overseas Development Institute’s research-to-policy framework (Jones et al., 2009), the need for an increased focus on the importance of the political context, a clearer understanding of the competing agendas of research and policy communities, and the need to translate research evidence into politically actionable guidelines were also discussed. The chapters in this volume resonate with the Childwatch/ACPF/ UNICEF conference discussions. They draw attention to the juxtaposition of community, local and global forces, and the political context in which migratory processes occur. The contributors include migration scholars, policy makers, and child advocates. They examine a multiplicity of approaches to child migration and illustrate the advantages of culturally located understanding of migrant children. They advocate for integration of policy priorities to improve outcomes for child migrants with child protection policies that are responsive to the principle of the “evolving capacities of the child” and recognize the child’s ability to exercise her agency. Looking toward the future, we urge researchers and practitioners alike to recognize children as active, politically and socially aware individuals, not objectified, passive victims. Research design and policy making should start with their input. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners need to encourage self-expression and peer-group solidarity among the child migrants they study or serve. This might require a significant paradigm shift and a transition from top-down to bottom-up approaches.





There is a particular need to apply these paradigm shifts to the increasingly common phenomenon of independent child migrants (Whitehead, 2007). Available legal frameworks applicable to this particular group of migrant children are largely inadequate; their individual migration projects—aimed at gaining waged employment and advancing their education—are rarely acknowledged, often leading to inappropriate protection regimes. Research on the kind of work independent child migrants do is scarce and skewed to those who work in the most harmful and abusive situations. The effects of migration on children need a much higher profile in policy discussions, although, as Whitehead (2007) points out, the contours of this concern will remain obscure until more research is available on all forms of migration of children and adolescents. At the moment, the policy space to make recommendations regarding independent child migrants is very narrow. It is flanked, on one side, by the international conventions and protocols aimed at protecting children and, on the other side, by the success of advocacy efforts aimed at particularly abused and vulnerable children: children in domestic servitude or bonded labor, “street” children, and “trafficked” children. The success of international advocacy on exploited and abused child migrants has inadvertently made it difficult, if not impossible, to address the very real needs of other child migrants (Whitehead and Hashim, 2005). Nevertheless, we remain optimistic that research on migrant children such as the case studies included in this volume will continue to enhance our understanding of their multifaceted experiences, and that enhanced partnership between and among researchers and practitioners will help develop models of good practice and encourage those involved in child migration policy to implement effective interventions worldwide.

Note 1. One of the volume editors—Marisa O. Ensor—attended this conference.

Bibliography V. Amit-Talai and H. Wulff (eds) (1995) Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (London: Routledge). M. Bluebond-Langner (1978) The Private Worlds of Dying Children (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).



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M. Bluebond-Langner and J. E. Korbin (2007) “Challenges and Opportunities in the Anthropology of Childhoods: Introduction to ‘Children, Childhoods, and Childhood Studies’ ”, American Anthropologist, 109(2): 241–246. J. Boyden and J. de Berry (eds) (2004) Children and Youth on the Front Line: Ethnography, Armed conflict and Displacement (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books). M. O. Ensor (2008) “Displaced Once Again: Honduran Migrant Children in the Path of Katrina”, Children, Youth and Environments, 18(1): 280–302. Available at: http://www.colorado.edu.journals.cye. Accessed on November 20, 2009. L. A. Hirschfeld (2002) “Why Don’t Anthropologists Like Children?” American Anthropologist, 104(2): 611–627. International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2008) World Migration 2008: Managing Labour Mobility in the Evolving Global Economy (IOM). Volume 4—IOM World Migration Report Series. Available at: http://iom.ch/jahia/webdav/site/ myjahiasite/shared/shared/mainsite/published_docs/ studies_and_reports/ WMR2008/Fp_WMR08.pdf. Accessed on April 17, 2010. A. James (2007) “Giving Voice to Children’s Voices: Practices and Problems, Pitfalls and Potentials”, American Anthropologist, 109(2): 261–272. C. Jenks (1996) Childhood (London: Routledge). O. Jeppsson and A. Hjern (2005) “Traumatic Stress in Context: A Study of Unaccompanied Minors from Southern Sudan”, in D. Ingleby (ed.) Forced Migration and Mental Health: Rethinking the Care of Refugees and Displaced Persons (New York: Springer), 67–80. N. Jones, A. Datta, and H. Jones (2009) Knowledge, Policy and Power. Six Dimensions of the Knowledge–Development Policy Interface (London: ODI). G. Machel (2001) Impact of War on Children (London: Hurst). C. Nugent (2006) “Whose Children Are These? Towards Ensuring the Best Interests and Empowerment of Unaccompanied Alien Children”, Public Interest Law Journal, 15: 219–235. C. Panter-Brick (2002) “Street Children, Human Rights, and Public Health”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 31: 147–171. A. Prout and A. James (1990) “A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood?” in A. James and A. Prout (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood (London: Falmer Press), 7–33. D. M. Rosen (2007) Child Soldiers, International Humanitarian Law, and the Globalization of Childhood”, American Anthropologist, 109(2): 296–306. D. M. Rosen (2008) “Children’s Rights and the International Community”, Anthropology News (Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association), 5–6. S. Stephens (ed.) (1995) Children and the Politics of Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). C. Suárez-Orozco and M. M. Suárez-Orozco (2001) Children of Immigration (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press). H. Swartzman (ed.) (1996) Children and Anthropology: Perspectives for the 21st Century (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey). UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) (2006) “International Migration Report: A Global Assessment”. Available at: http:// www. un. org/ esa/ population/ publications /2006_MigrationRep/exec_sum.pdf. Accessed on April 17, 2010.





UNFPA (2005) The Case for Investing in Young People as Part of a National Poverty Reduction Strategy (New York: UNFPA). UNHCR (2002) Global Consultations on International Protection: Refugee Children. 4th Meeting. April 25, 2002. Available at: www.unhcr.org/protect/ PROTECTION/3cd1544f4.pdf. Accessed on October 12, 2009. UNICEF (2008) “Releasing Declining Numbers for Child Mortality, UNICEF Calls for Increased Efforts to Save Children’s Lives.” Press Release. Available at: http://bit.ly/UNICEF08. Accessed on October 12, 2009. C. Watters (2008) Refugee Children: Towards the Next Horizon (Oxon and New York: Routledge). A. Whitehead (2007) Workshop on Independent Child Migrants Policy Debates and Dilemmas. Organized by the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty (University of Sussex and UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre), September 12. A. Whitehead and I. Hashim (2005) “Children and Migration”, Background Paper for DIFID Team. Available at: http://www.childtrafficking. com/Docs/dfid_05_child_mig_bac_0408.pdf. Accessed on October 12, 2009.



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abandonment, 123, 127 abuse of children, 5, 28, 275, 278 consequences for abusers, 201 and the CRC, 26 emotional, 37 of human rights, 143 by nonnatal caregiver, 187 parental, 174–5 physical, 46 of power, 143, 146 protection from, 131 reporting, 29 sexual, 48, 143, 169 towards restavek children, 37–9, 46, 50 vulnerability to, 92 adolescent displaced, 113 in international law, 108, 110 and migration, 168, 274–5, 278 Muslim females in France, 261, 262 in prison, 86 and schooling, 172, 256 television, 62 and trafficking, 169, 170 see also youth adoption among the Maasai, 193, 201 and fosterage, 190 and nationality, 135 see also orphans adult, 16–20, 25, 26, 49, 171, 249 abuse, 275 capacities, 16 and child labor, 42, 48 consent, 28 and detention, 82–3, 84, 85 and fostering, 190 literacy, 259 and research, 23–4, 67 and trafficking, 156–7, 168, 182

advocacy, 1, 3, 5, 7, 17, 36, 214, 274 and abused children, 278 and child labor, 37, 50 and protection, 29 rights-based, 30, 111 and statelessness, 117, 120 and trafficking, 148 age, 1, 3, 8, 17, 136, 275 chronological, 19, 171 determination, 82 discrimination, 20 and gender, 215, 218, 223 and legislation, 167, 169 and marriage, 215 and nationality, 118, 120, 123 and TV, 62–3 and vulnerability, 2, 6, 30, 97, 112, 131–2, 176 agency, 5–7, 10, 15, 30, 192, 275 and child rights, 92 and child trafficking, 167 and education, 231, 233 and juvenile delinquency, 83 and participation, 23, 26 and power, 221–5 of restaveks, 36, 37, 43–5, 47–8, 50 and vulnerability, 16–17, 76, 181, 277 anthropology, 15, 51, 92, 275 see also ethnography Apollonian, 18–19, 30 Ariès, Philippe, 18 asylum seekers, 1, 2, 5, 27, 79–82, 87, 92 detention of, 127 health of, 129 and nationality, 122, 132, 134 and trafficking, 131 unaccompanied minors, 148 see also refugees 281



Index

Index

best interests of the child, 92, 145, 158, 166, 167, 171, 174–6, 179–81, 226 border, 92, 98, 119, 133, 153, 167, 178, 232 control of, 79, 80 cultural, 65 international, 1, 2, 100, 101, 181 and waiting zones, 81 case worker, 170, 171, 175, 176, 178, 179 Cinderella hypothesis, 187–8, 191 citizenship, 55, 71, 130, 133–5, 256 Act of 1985, 130 of refugee children, 124 rights, 112, 118, 123 and statelessness, 121–7, 136, 137 US Child Citizenship Act of 2000, 135 US/Mexican, 236, 238, 241, 242, 250 conflict, 4, 20, 26, 46, 68, 97–9, 100–2, 104–8, 110, 112–14, 119, 190, 214, 262 see also war consent, 8, 16, 28, 82, 106, 143, 154, 158, 161, 167, 176 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 119, 122 Convention on the Rights of the Child, (CRC), 26, 27, 276 Article 29, 127 “best interests of the child” principle, 174 Committee on, 123, 134 definition of child, 167 and displaced children, 107, 110 on education, 127 and participation, 276, 277 twentieth anniversary, 277 criminalization, 82, 83, 92 of immigration, 9, 79 and trafficking, 166, 177–8 criminal law, 79–81, 132, 163 culture, 28, 176, 181, 253, 257, 276 and cognition, 19 and language, 85, 147, 253, 258

and mental health, 21 and music, 64 and youth, 62 decision making, 15, 16, 23, 29, 30, 45 intrahousehold, 218 on the part of children, 15, 16, 23, 29, 30, 45 regarding treatment of children, 174 right to participation, 104 detention centers, 9, 79, 80, 81, 84–7, 91, 127, 132 see also prisons; waiting zones Dionysian, 18–19, 30 (notes) disasters, 100–1 displacement due to, 97, 98 Indian Ocean Tsunami, 100 operational guidelines to disaster response, 108 reconstruction, 29 vulnerability to, 97, 98, 210 discourse, 8, 16, 181, 189, 255, 257, 276 about children, 4 academic, 17 of the Catholic Church, 202 cultural, 41 human rights, 25 medical-psychological, 88 national and international, 2, 36, 38, 188 North America, 253 popular, 25 public, 50, 166 discrimination, 99, 123 in access to education, 100 in accessing public services, 99 against IDP children, 100 against just women, 253 nondiscrimination in citizenship laws, 135 positive discrimination, 254–5, 260, 270–1 targeted, 133 against women and children, 99 diversity, 159, 169, 253, 256, 257, 260, 266, 268, 276 dowry, 215–16, 219, 220



282

education, 40–2, 66, 71, 188 in Bangladesh, 213–14 Christian Religious Education, 202 and displaced children, 99–100, 102, 103, 104 educational aspirations, 238–41 emergency education kits, 105 expedited, 105 and foster care/circulating children, 190, 192–3, 196–9, 201, 203 in France, 253, 254–7, 259–60, 266, 268, 270–3 in Honduras, 172 and mine awareness, 98 Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, 110 and nutrition, 105 parent and community, 39, 181 readmission for dropouts, 105 and stateless children, 118, 123, 124, 127–9 transnational, 11, 230–1, 239, 241, 248–9 see also literacy; schooling employment, 172 barred from, 133 female, 217 low-skilled, 214–15 minimum age, 136, 177, 273 see also labor; work empowerment in reference to IDPs, 104, 106 equality, 188, 243, 253–7, 261, 273 inequality, 38, 173, 254, 257 women, 264–6 ethics, 8, 16, 28–30, 49, 181 ethnography, ethnographic, 8, 51, 57, 211, 226 see also anthropology forced migration, 8, 27, 187, 209 fostering, fosterage, 41, 81, 87, 172–4, 175–6, 187–8, 191–8, 200–1, 203–4 foster care, 10, 91, 169, 170 foster home, 89 foster parents, 89–91, 170, 176

283

framework, 5, 37, 41, 103, 167, 171, 174, 278 conceptual, 7, 29 holistic, 2 human rights, 9, 10, 27–8, 101–2, 109 France, 9, 11, 79–82, 85, 87, 89, 91–2, 253, 254–5, 257, 258, 261, 265–7 gender, 10, 40, 44, 62, 111, 153, 158, 159, 213, 215, 225–6 discrimination, 210 distribution, 160 equality, 213 and honor, 217–18, 219 violence, gender-based, 105 globalization, 38, 39, 54, 117, 220 global model of childhood, 17–18 gossip, 219–25 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 9, 101–3, 107, 109 Haiti, 8, 36–8, 41, 47, 50, 134 headscarf, 261–4 health, 8, 126 and fosterage, 198 health care, 44, 112, 124 mental, 21, 82, 108, 148, 179, 180 public, 23 and stateless children, 129, 136 Hispanic, 180, 232 HIV/AIDS, 28, 127, 129 holism, holistic approach, 2, 4, 8, 16, 19, 30 honor, 209, 217–26 humanitarian access, 98 agencies, 6, 99, 107 assistance, 23, 99, 110 goals, 91 Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, 108 law, 101 narratives, 275 human rights, 9, 37, 38, 92, 117 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, US State Department, 267



Index

Index

human rights – continued Declaration of Human Rights and those of a Citizen (France), 254 human rights approach, 25–7 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 134 law, 101, 102 protection of, 102 right to birth registration, 123 right to education, 127 violations of, 98, 101 identity, 63, 65, 120, 134, 179 assumed, 118 cards in Syria, 125 cultural, 112 documents, 112, 132, 135, 146, 156 Islamic, 265–6 legal, 118, 123 national, 232, 241, 264, 265 self-identity, 177 sexual, 199 social, 87 theft of, 86 internal displacement Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, 99 internally displaced (IDP) children, 9, 97, 100–12 intrahousehold dynamics, 216–18, 226 Islamic, 60, 90, 92, 210, 212, 217, 222, 257, 261 countries, 262 dress, 263 identity, 265–6 see also Muslim kinship, 42, 43, 173, 210, 469 labor child, 2, 8, 10, 37, 42, 44, 136, 171–2, 195, 209–10, 213–16, 218 conditions, 29 domestic, 36–7, 42, 44 female, 211, 217, 223

forced, 38, 98, 99, 102, 167–70 International Labor Organization Conventions on the Minimum Age of Employment and Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor, 172 laws, 131 market, 172, 213, 220 standards, 172 see also employment; work language, 57, 59, 61–3, 67, 71, 85, 90, 125, 147, 246, 249 English, 231, 249 ESL, 232 French, 254, 259 native, 180, 259 Spanish, 249 law, 26, 80, 84, 85, 93, 111, 117, 120, 263–5, 267 antiloitering, 84 child labor, 131 child welfare, 174 citizenship, 122, 133, 135 Colombia’s Law 387 on Internal Displacement, 104 criminal, 89 discriminatory, 119 enforcement, 79, 83, 91, 124, 132, 136, 178 “equal under”, 254 Family Relations Act in British Colombia, 146 French, 254, 261, 263–4, 267 of Georgia on Internally Displaced Persons, 106 humanitarian, 10 immigration, 93 international, 81, 101, 102, 117, 120 Islamic, 262, 264 labor, 172 national, 101, 103, 106, 120, 133 US, 169, 176, 177 literacy, 196, 212, 213 adult, 259 parental, 199–200 of women, 266 see also education; schooling



284

Maasai, 10, 187–93, 199, 200, 202–3 marriage, 88, 99 in Bangladesh, 215–16, 219 forced, 133 in Kuwait, 124, 133 in Malaysia, 125 in Syria, 125 media, 9, 24, 36, 54–61, 66–71, 117, 118 international, 36, 39, 40, 47, 50, 65 internet, 57, 66 mobile phone, 65 music, 60, 64–5 news, 37, 56, 59, 63–4 television, 55–6, 59–63, 64, 65, 70, 170 video/DVD, 56–8, 60–1, 64, 66–70 mental health, 21, 82, 108, 148, 179, 180 see also health Mexico, Mexican, 10–11, 149, 150, 154, 155, 167, 168, 173, 230–50, 234, 235, 236 minority, 20, 109 in France, 253, 255 in relation to law, 84–5 Russian-speaking, 103 Urdu-speaking, 126 Muslim, 257, 261, 265, 266 anti-Muslim, 267 French Muslims, 264 see also Islamic nationality, 117, 118–23, 124, 135–7, 158 in Côte d’Ivoire, 130 French, 89, 262 Syrian, 126 national sovereignty, 2, 79 new paradigm of childhood, 19 orphans, 40, 99, 104, 105, 106 orphanages, 43, 47, 133 see also adoption participation in child interests, 175, 177 child participatory research, 23–9, 276

285

of children and media, 55–6, 66–70 of children in trafficking, 144–5, 158–9, 177 choice, 199, 209, 275–7 crossroads, 231 political, 265–6 of women and children as agents, 2–3, 6, 15–17, 43–8, 97, 103–6, 109–13, 136, 175, 192 Piagetian, 19 police, 84 and deportation, 80–1 French, 91, 267–8, 273 policing of gossip and honor, 218–20, 222 and salish, 219; see also shame self-police, 221 policy about stateless people, 136 concerning trafficking, 161 exclusionary, 258 influencing work migration, 209–10, 225–6, 249–50 involving child migrants, 24, 30, 37, 57–8, 174–5, 181–2, 276 regarding IDPs, 103–7 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 20, 22, 148, 179 see also trauma poverty and child urbanization, 40–1, 199–200, 209–11 and conflict, 99–100 hunger and migration, 46–7, 171–4 and marginalization, 24, 215–20 power in agency, 50, 209, 220, 222–5 in participatory research, 23–5, 28–9 prostitution, 99, 104, 143 see also sexual exploitation protection for child migrants, 9, 15, 18–20, 189 for child rights, 102–9, 119–20, 131–2 France, 81–2 for IDP, 98, 101–5, 109–12 protectionist, 175–6



Index

Index

protection – continued of refugees, 158, 162–4 self-protection, 223–4 treaties, 26–30 provision, 6 for IDP children, 97, 102, 135 international, 103 for national children, 104–6, 163 psychiatry, 20–1, 88, 108, 179–80 psychology, 19–20 psychosocial, 23, 99, 108 purdah, 210, 217–18, 222 refugees children, 1–2, 122, 124, 127, 132 education, 66, 127 image, 5, 21, 101 living conditions, 126 protection of, 27, 107–8 treatment of, 279–80 see also asylum seekers rehabilitation, 179 religion and education, 102, 202, 255, 266 in France, 261–8 representation of honor, 217–18 of media self-expression, 57, 66–8 of migrant children participation, 15, 24–5, 37, 48, 71, 276 of migrant children’s image, 5, 15–16, 37, 39, 50–1, 69, 70 resilience, resiliency, 5–8, 21, 97, 178, 180 restavek, 36–8, 42 initiative, 45–8, 50 representation, 39 research, 39–40, 43, 49 schooling, 37, 44, 47 rights child, 26–7, 102, 209 human, 25, 27, 102, 254 rural livelihood, 214 salish, 219 school circulation, 196–9 distance, 193 Mexican schools, 235, 242–3, 247

US schools, 240–4, 247 violence, 271–2 schooling childhood construction, 19–20 child labor, 214 educational aspirations, 234, 238–9, 240 in France, 255–7, 260 and headscarves, 261–2, 264, 266 human rights, 127–9, 136 and language, 62, 259 Mexican students, 235, 245 Mexico and US dynamic of, 232–3, 239, 242 and migration, 213–14 opportunities, 189–90 in situations of displacement, 100, 106 see also education; literacy sexual exploitation, 168–9 see also prostitution shame norms, 217–19, 221 re-interpreting norms, 222–5 and salish, 219 and work, 214–15, 220–1 social mobility, 188, 199 statelessness, 117 children, 118, 121–3, 131–2, 134 citizenship, 118–19, 121, 123–5 exclusion, 133–4 living conditions, 126 protection, 119–20, 122, 136 street children, 2, 29, 48–9, 104 stress, 147–8, 198 student IDP, 99–100 Visa, 151 trafficking in Canada, 143–7, 154–64 in the US, 10, 211 transnational migrants, 1, 21 schools, 231–6, 242–3, 247 students, 238–42, 244, 245–6



286

trauma and displaced people, 108 effects of, 86 and migrant children, 5, 15, 20–2 treatment for, 21, 69, 179–80 see also post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) unaccompanied minors (UMs) advocacy and intervention, 21 in British Colombia, 144–5, 149–54, 157–8, 160–2 in France, 80–1, 83 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 22–3, 111 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 101, 107–11, 127, 134, 136 urban center and displacement, 99, 104 migration to, 43, 54 victims, 15 in Haiti, 47–50 passive victims, 1, 30, 109 of trafficking, 143–4, 168–71, 176–7 of violence, 263 violence in France, 255–6, 267–8 sexual, 98–9, 104–5, 108 voice of children, 15–16, 50–1, 66, 68, 181, 276 for participation, 25–6 vulnerability of migrant children, 3–8, 15–17, 91 of trafficked children, 166, 176–81 to trafficking, 131, 143

287

waiting zones, 80, 82, 93 see also detention war Algeria, 262, 266 and displacement, 21 explosive remnants of, 98 on terror, 93 trauma, 22, 86, 180 war crimes, 109 see also conflict women in Canada, 156 displaced, 99, 210 employment, 213, 215 honor and shame, 217–20, 263–5 policies for, 103–6 stateless, 122 trafficked, 166 work child labor migration, 1–3, 41–3, 171–4, 194 child rights, 26–7, 113, 214 choice, 209–11, 213 exploitation, 29, 132 remittances, 170 restrictions, 177, 209, 215 see also employment; labor youth in Canada, 145, 148, 164 collectively, 15, 19 culture, 62–3 detention centers, 84–6, 91 Haitian, 40, 43 Honduran, 29 participation, 104, 106, 109–11 stateless, 118, 130–2, 136–7 see also adolescents



Index

Children and Migration: At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability

Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability

At the Crossroads

Maigret at the Crossroads

Planning At The Crossroads

Consciousness at the Crossroads

Consciousness at the Crossroads

Science at the Crossroads

At the Crossroads

Migration For Employment: Bilateral Agreements At A Crossroads

Quantum mechanics at the crossroads

Crossroads at Outreach

Public Enterprise at the Crossroads

Quantum Theory at the Crossroads

Between Truth and Illusion: Kant at the Crossroads of Modernity

Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture

Afghan Frontier: At the Crossroads of Conflict

Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability

Resiliency Enhancement

Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability

Climate Change and Vulnerability

Vulnerability and Violence; The Impact of Globalisation

Climate Change and Vulnerability

America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy

Vulnerability and Violence: The Impact of Globalization

Black Families at the Crossroads: Challenges and Prospects

Black Families at the Crossroads : Challenges and Prospects

Israeli Institutions at the Crossroads (Israeli: History, Politics and Society)

Public Health at the Crossroads: Achievements and Prospects

Inclusion at the Crossroads: Special Education--Concepts and Values

Energy at the crossroads: global perspectives and uncertainties

Children and Migration: At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability

Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability

At the Crossroads

Maigret at the Crossroads

Planning At The Crossroads

Consciousness at the Crossroads

Consciousness at the Crossroads

Science at the Crossroads

At the Crossroads

Migration For Employment: Bilateral Agreements At A Crossroads

Quantum mechanics at the crossroads

Crossroads at Outreach

Public Enterprise at the Crossroads

Quantum Theory at the Crossroads

Between Truth and Illusion: Kant at the Crossroads of Modernity

Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture

Afghan Frontier: At the Crossroads of Conflict

Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability

Resiliency Enhancement

Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability

Climate Change and Vulnerability

Vulnerability and Violence; The Impact of Globalisation

Climate Change and Vulnerability

America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy

Vulnerability and Violence: The Impact of Globalization

Black Families at the Crossroads: Challenges and Prospects

Black Families at the Crossroads : Challenges and Prospects

Israeli Institutions at the Crossroads (Israeli: History, Politics and Society)

Public Health at the Crossroads: Achievements and Prospects

Inclusion at the Crossroads: Special Education--Concepts and Values

Energy at the crossroads: global perspectives and uncertainties

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