This article tries to analyse the evolution over the past 40 years of children’s domestic work and its representations in urban Côte d’Ivoire, and, particularly, how these practices evolved from family work linked to educational processes, into the kind of wage work that exists today. Listening to the children themselves, the aim is to find out how the petites bonnes (young maids) perceive their situation as workers, how they make it their own and how they see their future.
this involvement has been prompted by international agencies (ILO, UNICEF) and NGOs devoted to the welfare of children, and particularly local and international media coverage and the organization of various international conferences (Amsterdam, Trondheim and Oslo, 1997; Paris, 2000; Oslo, 2005). 1 Two CRC provisions occupy a central place in the debate on child labour. A first provision deals with children and young people's own perceptions of what they do and need and underscores the importance of adopting a child-oriented perspective (Article 12 CRC). This provision calls for the development of mechanisms that allow children's viewpoints to be heard in the debate and that their voices be respected. A second provision deals with child labour more
[eng] Mélanie Jacquemin — Domestic work and child labour : the case of Abidjan (Ivory Coast.). Invisible for a long while or rendered as such, child labour is now in the spotlights due to the present focus on the extreme aspects of child-exploitation. In Ivory Coast, the phenomenon of little servants is undergoing significant changes, combining traditional educational practices through work with more recent wage concerns. Observing the diversity of situations suggests that indiscriminate abolition would be difficult ; regulating labour conditions and training of servants may be considered as options to predetermination and better perspectives.
Résumé Dans la société abidjanaise contemporaine, la majeure partie du service domestique est effectuée par des fillettes et des jeunes filles âgées de moins de 20 ans. Phénomène ancien, repérable dès les origines de la ville, la mise au travail de « petites bonnes » dans les ménages urbains a connu d’importantes transformations, notamment sous l’influence de la récession économique qui sévit en Côte-d’Ivoire depuis les années 1980. Pour éclairer les logiques contemporaines d’une telle mise à contribution de petites et jeunes filles dans l’économie domestique urbaine, cet article retrace l’histoire du marché du service domestique juvénile féminin à Abidjan au cours des 30 dernières années. Analysant le passage de logiques familiales de mise au travail domestique des enfants à des logiques anonymes et plus contractuelles de salariat domestique juvénile, il met en évidence la diversité des situations et la complexité d’un phénomène qui, resté méconnu, représente pourtant un indicateur du changement social en Afrique noire.
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