Family Hardship and Cultural Values: Child Labor in Malian Small-Scale Gold Mining Communities

Gavin Hilson

World Development, 2012, vol. 40, issue 8, 1663-1674

Abstract: This paper contributes to the debate on child labor in small-scale mining communities, focusing specifically on the situation in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that the child labor now widespread in many of the region’s small-scale mining communities is a product of a combination of cultural issues, household-level poverty, and rural livelihood diversification. Experiences from Komana West, a subsistence gold panning area in Southern Mali, are drawn upon to make this case. The findings suggest that the sector’s child labor “problem” is far more nuanced than international organizations and policymakers have diagnosed.

Keywords: small-scale mining; child labor; gold; poverty; Mali; sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1200054X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:40:y:2012:i:8:p:1663-1674

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.03.017

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().