On challenges, dilemmas, and opportunities in studying trafficked children

Anthropological Quarterly, Fall, 2008 by Elzbieta M. Gozdziak

In West Africa, fostering is an important technique rooted in kinship structures and traditions. Children are not sent out only in the event of crisis; sending of children is practiced by both stable and unstable families, married and single mothers (Isiugo-Abaniche 1985, 1991). The supportive role of kinsmen, close and distant, in child rearing has been widely documented (Page 1989). However, while researchers extol the benefits of child fostering, some child advocates point out that the West African tradition of 'placing' of children to live with relatives and work in better off households has created a regional market for child labor, with demand highest in relatively well-off areas such as Gabon, southwest Nigeria, and southern Cote d'Ivoire, and has become a major cultural factor encouraging child trafficking (Dottrige 2002: 39). According to the British Agencies for Adoptions and Fostering, 10,000 children, mostly from West Africa, were living with families other than their own in the United Kingdom in 2001 (Economist 2003). The implication of this statistic is that these children might have been trafficked and are being exploited by the foster families.

In Latin America, "child circulation" is a principal way in which Peruvian rural-to-urban migrants move children between houses as part of a common survival and betterment strategy in the context of social and economic inequality (Leinaweaver 2007). Poverty and vulnerability shape Peruvian practices of kinship formation through child circulation. For the receiving family, child circulation represents strategic labor recruitment; for the sending household, it spells relief from the economic burdens of child rearing and constitutes a source of highly desirable remittances. A considerable proportion of children in Mexico and Colombia were found to spend some time during childhood without a father. When births outside a union are included, one-fifth of Mexican children and one-third of Colombian children were affected. An additional five percent of Mexican children and nine percent of Colombian children do not live with their mothers (Richter 1988).

The traditional causes of sending children to live with other relatives and friends vary widely. They include illness, death, divorce, the parents' separation, mutual help among family members, socialization and education, and strengthening family ties (by blood or by marriage). For the societies involved, child circulation is a characteristic of family systems, fitting in with patterns of family solidarity and the system of rights and obligations. Fostering is a component of family structure and dynamics (Pilon 2003). Indeed, the majority of the children in our study lived with other family members or friends prior to being trafficked and most were sent to live with family members or friends in the United States and ended up being trafficked.

While some blame child fostering as a root cause of child trafficking, others call for the revival of traditional fostering systems. Examining both traditional and state-administered foster care systems in East Africa, Joyce Umbima, an executive officer of the Child Welfare Society of Kenya, argues that the dissolution of the traditional clan-based foster care system due to colonial rule, urbanization, large-scale farming and mining, and globalization has contributed to the increase in the number of street and abandoned children. She advocates that in order to assist the 40 percent of Kenyan children in need of care and protection, the state must revitalize the traditional foster care system (Umbima 1991).