This article questions the applicability of international standards on children’s
work to such situations as are found in South Africa. Differing contexts affect ideas of what
is appropriate for children. Although South Africa has a developed economy and technology
and aspires to full participation in the developed world, poverty remains a problem,
as does quality and accessibility of schooling. These factors, together with different cultural
views on children and growing up, affect experiences of childhood and of school, making
them very different from the experiences of young people in the developed world.
Although few children in South Africa are in regular paid employment, those undertaking
part-time paid work often see this as a positive feature in their lives, while many find that
unpaid work in the home can be a problem. Such children doing useful part-time paid
work, as well as those doing excessive work in their homes, need protection and support,
yet escape attention in international discourse on abolishing ‘child labour.’