A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON GHANA’S CHILDHOOD, CHILD RIGHTS, AND CHILD LABOUR GOVERNANCE MODALITIES: A Case Study of Abolitionist Discourses and Practices on Children’s Work in the Fishing Sector

This chapter uses findings from research on interventions against child labour and trafficking in Ghanaian fishing communities to analyse the influence of international instruments, discourses, and practices protecting children’s rights on Ghanaian law and policy. It first demonstrates that international (primarily Western) funding and conceptions of child rights and childhood provide significant inspiration for these abolitionist efforts, their guiding national laws and policies, and the key actors involved in implementing them. These programmes, on the other hand, do not take into account the neoliberal, international (and mostly Western-derived) factors that contribute just as much to the factors underlying children’s precarious labour in fishing communities and others across the country. As a result of this omission, these marginalised communities are unfairly blamed for their children’s precarious labour, despite the fact that they have little to no influence over the drivers of this problem. This chapter argues that this is the motivation behind violent raids that abolitionist actors conduct against fishing and farming communities under the pretext of ‘rescuing’ children from child labour and child trafficking. It concludes with some suggestions for addressing the issues identified.