Peer-reviewed article
hermeneutical injustice and outsourced domestic girl-child labour
Dominic Effiong Abakedi, Emmanuel Kelechi Iwuagwu, Mary Julius Egbai ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines outsourced domestic girl-child labour in Nigeria through the lens of hermeneutical injustice—the inability of victims to understand and communicate their own experiences due to gaps in shared language and concepts. The authors analyse newspaper accounts of girls working as domestic servants and argue that these victims experience both a lack of frameworks to interpret their exploitation and deliberate obstruction of their understanding by perpetrators. The paper recommends reforms including curriculum changes, establishment of awareness agencies, legislative feminization, and stronger enforcement of child protection laws.
Key points
- Outsourced domestic girl-child labour persists despite international child-rights declarations
- Victims experience hermeneutical injustice: they lack adequate conceptual resources to understand and articulate their experiences of exploitation
- The practice involves both hermeneutical gaps (missing frameworks) and hermeneutical interference (active obstruction of understanding)
- Recommended solutions include feminizing educational curricula to provide girls with language and concepts to make sense of their experiences
- Stronger enforcement of existing child-rights laws and establishment of feminist liberation agencies in schools, religious institutions and hospitals are needed
Limitations
The study relies on two newspaper reports as its primary data source rather than systematic empirical research with affected girls, limiting the breadth and depth of evidence about the actual experiences and prevalence of this form of child labour. The analysis is primarily theoretical and philosophical rather than providing quantitative or comprehensive qualitative evidence about the scope and impact of the problem.
Abstract
We observed that despite international declarations on child-rights, outsourced domestic girl-child labour still persists. Raising the question whether outsourced domestic girl-child labour constitutes hermeneutical injustice, we respond affirmatively. Relying on two indigenous victimology-narratives that are newspaper reports, we expose some of the horrors that the victims of outsourced domestic girl-child labour suffer. Comparing these reports with other victimology-narratives of hermeneutical injustice as reported by Miranda Fricker and Hilkje Hänel, we argue that the victims of outsourced domestic girl-child labour suffer a hermeneutical gap and hermeneutical interference; and that the perpetuators of this practice, help to foster what we call ‘hermeneutical obstruction’. We recommend different counteracting measures such as: a radical feminization of educational curricula, which will allow for the introduction of the relevant hermeneutical resources that female children need in making sense of their experiences, into the classrooms and other places of learning; establishing feminist liberation agencies in all schools, religious institutions and hospitals, as ways of increasing the level of awareness about the rights of the girl-child in children and adults; feminizing legislation and legislative processes, to allow for the enactment of laws to protect the rights of the girl-child; and campaigning for a more rigorous enforcement of child-rights laws.