Shock and uncertainty such as drought and AIDS have had fundamental impacts on rural African communities. Poverty is growing, social and economic infrastructures are deteriorating, as is the environment. Children's work potential, exploited from as early as six, is becoming increasingly essential to a family's survival. Following a drought, labour supplies are crucial as farmers strive to ensure food security by planting as much as possible. Yet only families with access to cheap labour, such as children, can afford to grow such a labour-intensive crop.
Children begin working in the fields from the age of eight.
The youngest consume more food than they produce but become 'producers' at about twelve years old. Family structures and individual family roles are being re-defined as a result of environmental and social change with children and adolescents suffering the most. It is increasingly socially acceptable for young women to have children out of wedlock as a means of securing extra labour for her family. Children are now viewed as economic assets to be negotiated, for example between divorced parents. Such children used to return with the mother to her family.