Mauluka, Gift Gawanani
Research Interests:
Human Rights, Children's Rights, Gender Equality, Community Development, Social Work
Geographical Area:
Malawi and Ghana
Current Project:
State obligations in addressing climate change-induced child labour: an investigation of child labour legal frameworks enforcement in Malawi and Ghana
My thesis seeks to investigate why climate change-induced child labour persists in Malawi and Ghana even though there is a vibrant legal framework that is meant to tackle the problem. Specifically, I am interrogating the role of community-based structures in the protection of children from climate change-induced child labour. Given the complexity of the problem as well as its linkage with climate change, I will do this by applying social legal research methods to explore possible solutions outside the legal frameworks, institutional processes and procedures. In this study, I hypothesize that the normative framework has little to do with the lived reality of the families and children towards whom the obligations expected in instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ILO standards, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child are directed. I propose therefore to look at structures within communities to see whether the normative, institutional and procedural requirements from the formal system can be grounded there.
Further information (publications and conference contributions)