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Street Children And The Work Ethic

New policy for an old moral, Nairobi (Kenya)

Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IUED)

Kenyan policy-makers use the language of children's rights to legitimize, within the new global political order, an old colonial concern about controlling the urban marginal population. The local business community's worries about the safety of Nairobi's streets stand paramount, while the growing financial and political leverage of NGOs interfering in local affairs in the name of street children's rights is looked upon with suspicion. Accusing the abstract universalism of the language of children's rights of being incompatible with local values, the local political elite seeks to muster support by offering an alternative version based on the local Kikuyu ethos of the ‘accomplished man’. This version sits well with international development agencies’ abandonment of the term ‘street children’ in favour of ‘street families’. Deportation and forced labour of children and youth are sanctified as moral imperatives expected to restore the meaning of family to its rightful place in the local business morale.

Key Words: ethos • governance • Kikuyu • political instrumentalization • street children

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