Family rationales behind child begging in antananarivo

Abstract

The media have often presented child labour as one of the most striking symbols of poverty. Although it fi rst came to attention in the western world with the advent of the industrial revolution (Schlemmer, 2006), child labour, particularly in developing countries, was thrust into the spotlight in the mid- 1990s with the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 and the creation of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Indeed, child labour is primarily observed in developing countries, implying that poverty is the main explanation for its continuing existence. Fallon and Tzannatos (1998) presented fi ndings for a panel of countries which seem to confi rm the poverty hypothesis overall. However, it was confi rmed only for countries where the average per capita income is below USD 600. In countries where average income was above this threshold, the relationship no longer holds true, even though there are large variations in the prevalence of child labour within this group.(1) Many studies nonetheless corroborate the poverty hypothesis (Basu, 1999; Basu and Tzannatos, 2003; Edmonds and Pavcnik, 2005; Edmonds, 2005). © I.N.E.D. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.