Voices of the Working Children and their Parents: Will Anyone Listen?

The voices of nearly three hundred and sixty thousand children (boys and girls) and over one hundred and sixty four thousand parents (mothers and fathers) from both urban and rural areas of 25 developing countries have been pooled together in this book to analyse the children's and their parents' own experiences, perceptions, priorities and aspirations on the multiple dimensions of the phenomenon of child labour. Data was collected through national child labour surveys carried out during 1999 and 2011. The book synthesises the children's and their parents' own perceptions of why children work, the consequences on family welfare if children stopped work, their future aspirations and reasons for children not attending school drawing on this unique data set. Striking similarities have been noted between the children's and parents' mindsets across countries with diverse social, economic, cultural and political contexts.