The Rod, the Child, and the Slave: Antislavery Campaigners’ Selective Attention to Violence Against Children

Campaigns to prohibit the use of corporal punishment against children receive only a fraction of the interest and support that is elicited by campaigns to eliminate ‘child slavery’, even though the latter is said to be defined primarily by the use of violence to control children. This article draws on research with young Ghanaian men and women who, as children, experienced what antislavery NGOs describe as ‘child slavery’ to show that the kind of violent control they were subjected to as supposed ‘child slaves’ was neither qualitatively different from, nor more extreme than, the kinds of violent control they experienced in other contexts, especially the home. The article questions the selective focus on violence in ‘child slavery’ in abolitionist campaigns, arguing that it reflects and reproduces patriarchal, racialised, and colonial thinking about childhood, dependency, and legitimate authority, including the idea that some adults have the right to violently control children.