Child exploitation remains a global concern that can occur in less visible contexts such as informal foster care. In Botswana and many other settings, children are sent to live with relatives or other households for caregiving, schooling, or work. These children are sometimes exploited and become unpaid servants or, in Botswana, malata. This study explores the lived experiences of adults in Botswana who had been placed in informal foster care as children and became malata. Twenty adults who self-identified as having lived as malata during childhood participated in the study. All resided in communities near Gaborone, Botswana’s capital, at the time of data collection. Local researchers conducted retrospective narrative interviews with participants in private settings lasting 60–90 minutes.
The interview reports were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s six-step thematic analysis framework. Four interconnected themes emerged. First, pathways into placement were characterized by family instability, poverty, and constrained choice. Second, participants described everyday exploitation through unpaid domestic work, cattle herding, agricultural labour, material deprivation, and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Third, children had limited agency to resist or leave exploitative situations because disclosures were frequently dismissed, and power was concentrated in the hands of caregivers and employers. Finally, participants described long-term consequences that accumulated across the life course, including disrupted education, poor physical and mental health, and persistent socio-economic disadvantage. These findings demonstrate that exploitative informal fostering can produce cumulative disadvantage extending well beyond childhood and highlight the need for child protection systems to better recognize and respond to exploitation within informal care arrangements.