ABSTRACT

Waiting on an underground platform at London’s King’s Cross station in March 2010, my attention was drawn towards a striking advertisement. Situated both literally and figuratively on the wrong side of the tracks, a photograph depicted a young boy standing over a whirring lathe. ‘Shumon, just 13, works 7 hours a day in a factory’, the poster announced, beneath a large and unequivocal statement - ‘LOST: ONE CHILDHOOD’. In this image, created for a UNICEF fundraising campaign, the message is clear: children who labour for a living are denied a childhood, and children who work do so indoors, in dark workshops. The boy in the poster, whose story the charity elaborated online (UNICEF 2010), conforms almost precisely to the description of ‘the “model” NGO-child’ suggested by Olga Nieuwenhuys (2007: 156-7). 1 Identified by his first name only, commuters viewing the advertisement are invited to infer that young Shumon’s activities are representative of a type of upbringing long outlawed in the West, though still endemic elsewhere. How can we sustain a global childhood of protected innocence, this image asks, if children continue to work? We must ‘put it right’ by donating, urges the poster’s small print.