Children’s Rights in the DRC and Neoliberal Reforms: The Case of Work in Artisanal and Small-scale Mining in the Katanga Province

After having analyzed issues in the mining sector between the legality of neo-liberal policies and the legality of children’s rights, we will then analyze how children’s rights are shaping subjectivities and consequently intergenerational relationships in Katanga province, whose mineral diversity and concentration are amongst the highest in the world. Secondly, relying on an ethnographic study on children’s mining activities in the city of Lubumbashi (Province of Katanga), our aim is to highlight the continuities between the worlds of the artisanal mines and of the children’s families; both are worlds where similar strategies of survival as well as processes of children’s and parents’ identity construction are taking place. On the basis of the analysis of how children live and experience child labour, we will be able to look at how narratives on childhood and parenthood from a children’s rights perspective resonate in the lives of Congolese children and their families according to their respective social backgrounds