Angels with callous hands
children's work in rural Kerala (India).
This book moves beyond the usual concern with child labour to a critical assessment of the daily work routine of children in a south Indian village. It helps to explain why this work, which is what the exploitation of children in the Third World Is In fact all about, has largely been ignored. The book analyzes in detail the dynamics of two major sectors of the rural economy,coir making and fishing, and makes clear that both are intimately linked to children's unrecognized work. Bringing out the historical roots of children's position in society, it shows how working children face the challenge of having to combine schooling with work. The book offers a different perspective: that of children creating the visibility of their work, rather than being in need of compassion.
Olga Nieuwenhuys shared the companionship of peasant girls when she was a young girl herself: "My early experience with work has been... the driving force behind my concern with the working children in India. From the onset, the spirit in which I have approached them, has been attuned to the very same sense of fascination… I think that without a conscious will to bridge the gap in knowledge and experience between the world of adulthood and that of childhood, being a mlddleclass, western Intellectual and a mother myself, I would have been unable to portray the world of working children the way I have done it in this book.
Proefschrift Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Met lit. opg. en een samenvatting in het Nederlands