child trafficking

In 1909, Ellen Key claimed that the 20th century would be the century of the child. She visualised a world where children would take their rightful place alongside adults, as full and equal participants in society (Key, 1909). However, towards the end of the twentieth century, a universal sense that the social order was fragmented under the pressure of rapid economic, social and technological change, in other words the emergence of globalisation, which affected childhood and in particularly the distinction between children and adults (Prout, 2005). But it wasn’t until the mid-80s that the sociology of childhood grew out of dissatisfaction with the general neglect of children within sociology. Jens Qvortrup, was the first sociologist to break with the sociology of the family, claiming that that there was a need to move from the focus on socialisation and child development (mainly psychology and social policy) to a sociology that attempted to take children and their everyday life experiences seriously (Qvortrup,1985).Today children are a source of unprecedented concern, from the children of developed countries like North America and Japan to the poorest children in countries in Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. Children's lives are of great interest to the media, governments and international agencies, their development and wellbeing is researched legislated and debated at every level. Childhood is recognised as a global as well as a local concern (Montgomery, Burr & Woodhead, 2003).

The growth of sociological interest in children and childhood has coincided widely with the development of the modern children's rights movement. The two disciplines share some communalities such as the emphasis given to children's agenc...

... middle of paper ...

... child labor is illegal, according to the National Child Labor Report, there are approximately 1.6 million children between the ages of five and 17 years in the work force, around three-quarters of them are under the age of 14 and most are girls. Child labour has been predominant in Nepal for a hundreds of years particularly in rural areas as part of the normal process of socialization (The Nepal Labour Force Survey (NLFS) 2008). In this scenario the idealised idea of children being helpless and in need of protection disappears and so does the idea of childhood as a permanent social structure. Nepalese children are forced to take on the type of responsibilities that should really belong to their parents and in this sense they are missing out on doing things that children of their age do in most Western cultures for example something as basic as attending school.