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Full-Text Articles in African History
“God Was With Us:” Child Labor In Colonial Kenya, 1922 - 1950s, Samson K. Ndanyi
“God Was With Us:” Child Labor In Colonial Kenya, 1922 - 1950s, Samson K. Ndanyi
Journal of Retracing Africa
Contentious debates about the allowable minimum age of child laborers informed the discourse of child labor in colonial Kenya between 1922 and the 1950s. Beginning with the Harry Thuku Uprising of 1922 that instigated the discussion over labor policy concerning juvenile wage laborers and heightened the tension between the British colonial administration and African adult workers, the British government in Kenya struggled to forge coherent labor policies concerning the ages of African child workers. Frequent changes in labor laws made it easier for labor recruiters and employers to manipulate the system by recruiting younger children for work thus drawing them …