As Nigerians trudge along with the current harsh economic realities, families have found it difficult to feed their children, thereby leading to a significant increase in child labour in recent times. Dayo Oyewo in this report captures the pains and agony of these young ones.
THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD Esther Onyeka sat by the roadside under the scorching sun with a tray of groundnuts placed beside her. The fair-looking hawker wore a distraught countenance while she broke out droplets of sweat on her face. She had just finished running at the pace of a moving commercial bus to meet up with a passenger who bought her groundnuts.
Upon moving closer to her, it was discovered that the last passenger had taken a wrap of groundnuts away while she was trying to provide his balance and collect her money from him.
This situation, however, compounded the sad reality that had forced young Onyeka to become a street hawker on the streets of Lagos State.
“My gain from the groundnuts I am selling has reduced,” a frustrated Onyeka voiced out as our correspondent approached her to know what happened. “When I gave him the groundnuts, he brought out a N1000 note and as I wanted to find his balance before collecting the money, the bus had already moved,” she further gesticulated while facing another hawker who also approached her.
Onyeka lamented that her struggling mother wouldn’t be happy if she did not sell all the groundnuts.
“If I don’t sell all these groundnuts, my mother won’t be happy and there is no way I will eat and go to school. The money I get from the sales is what I use to support myself,” she said.
Unlike the older ones hawking other items along the Iyana Ipaja corridor in the Alimosho Local Government Area of the state, Onyeka started hawking about four months ago.
Mindful of the time frame she had to sell the groundnuts before heading home, she reluctantly gave our correspondent a condition before she could grant him audience which was to buy some wraps from her.
After getting an affirmative nod, she explained that it was a decision reached by her parents to support the family.
“My parents gave birth to three children and I am the second of them. I didn’t know how to hawk and coming down here was not my personal decision. It was my parents who suggested that I join my friends who are hawking to also support their families. And this was after my father started complaining that his business was not doing well like before. He sells second-hand clothes in the evening at Oshodi while my mum sells fruits.
“My dad used to be responsible for the family’s upkeep and got support from my mum until he started to complain about poor sales. He struggled to still keep providing for the family but it did not work out. It was so bad that he even had to borrow money to come home sometimes. Since then, my mother has provided the money for the family to cover up for my dad. But a while after that, my mum also started to complain that people were owing her. This affected our schooling as we often stayed at home due to school fees or some certain materials we were instructed to bring. That was when my parents agreed that I should start selling bottled water by the roadside. But whenever I sit there, I don’t usually make sales. That was why I joined others who hawk their products.”
Although it was not too comfortable for her when she started, “I no longer feel shy because of my schoolmates given that I am already getting used to it,” she added.
No fewer than seven underage children were seen hawking various types of items ranging from snacks, oranges, bottled water and handkerchiefs at the location as they pace the corridor of the road, hastening up to attend to bus passengers and commuters who beckoned at them.
This was a similar sight at various traffic points along the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway corridor as under-age children slugged it out with their adult counterparts to make ends meet through sales from the products they hawked.
Increase in child hawking
From Igando to Iyana-Ipaja, Ketu-Ojota to Maryland, and Ile-Epo to Oshodi, our correspondent toured some locations familiar with the regular sight of children engaging in street trading in the state. It was, however, observed that there had been a significant increase in the number of children engaging in street hawking. Although not many would notice the changes as their presence across the locations used to be a usual sight for Lagos motorists and residents, some adults among them however confirmed the development.
One of them, Stanley Aduda, said, “Most of us come from different places and we meet at this point to sell our markets. We also know ourselves and when new faces join us. But we have been having some new young ones among us in the past few months. Ordinarily, we see an increase in the number of children when schools are on holidays, but we now see them in huge numbers when there is a holiday or not.”
Victims of accident, robbery and rape
Due to their age and body frame, most of these child hawkers have been exposed to a series of hazards, including road accidents.
One Thursday morning in February, a young male hawker died and many other people were injured in a multiple motor accident that occurred on the Kara Bridge on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in Ogun State. The accident involved a truck, laden with a 40-ft container and six other vehicles when it rammed into them following a brake failure.
Another young unidentified young female hawker was on Saturday, July 15, crushed to death by a diesel-laden tanker at the Otedola Bridge inward Berger area of Lagos State. The truck with the number plate GME 483XD also rammed into three moving vehicles. The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency said the truck developed a mechanical fault while in motion.
Like some other states, the Lagos State Government has criminalised street hawking, especially by minors. But nothing has changed regarding the move, as child hawkers still line the streets to make ends meet.
Aside from being victims of road accidents, these child hawkers had also been victims of kidnapping, while some of them also ended up being assaulted and raped.
A middle-aged man sometime in May allegedly raped a 12-year-old girl in Igbokoda, the headquarters of the Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State.
The suspect, whose identity was not revealed, allegedly raped the victim who was hawking snacks. The suspect allegedly lured the victim into an uncompleted building in the town where he allegedly perpetrated the act.
Similarly, an auto spare parts dealer, Martins Ukemezie, was in 2021 arrested by the police for allegedly raping a 13-year-old hawker in his shop at Iyanu bus stop, Meiran, Lagos State.
The victim, a primary six pupil, had reportedly sold N50 groundnuts to Ukemezie and was about to collect the money when the suspect allegedly dragged her into his shop and raped her.
Speaking on the development, Dozie Anyanwu, who also hawks plantain inside the traffic along the Ajah end of the Lekki-Epe Expressway said the younger ones among them were always at the receiving end of the casualties.
He said, “We still know how to find our ways out of this problem but the younger ones suffer it the most. We have had cases where some of them are either being robbed or the female ones among them being raped. Those who were often raped ended up being damaged by the experience. They do not speak out and those who speak out do not get justice because of the circumstances that led to it. We only tried to watch each other’s back and see the younger ones off close to their houses. We also have cases of those who had swollen foot because vehicles mistakenly climbed their legs.”
Young Steven’s prying eyes followed those who made their way into the Oyingbo market. He was alert to know who needed what and made himself readily available to either make referrals or assist the customers to carry their bags.
When our correspondent moved close to speak to him, he could not wait as he rushed to cozy up to one of his targets.
A trader who sells plantain in the market and also familiar with his background, however, told our correspondent upon inquiry that he had been doing that for well over three months.
“He collects the nylon bags from a trader and comes to the market to sell them. Once he sells everything, he takes the money back to the person and collects his commission. He also assists people to carry their belongings. He is the one fending for himself and he uses part of the money he makes to support his family. He offers to make referrals for people who need assistance and uses that opportunity to sell the nylon bags,” she revealed.
The period he was seen in the market was during school hours. Asked if he attended school at all, the market woman quipped, “Yes, he does”
She explained further that, “He also uses the money for schooling. If you see him in the market during school hours, that means he needed to buy something in school.”
Steven would later corroborate the claims of the trader while speaking with our correspondent who ran into him again while exiting the market.
“I am nine years old. I am just about to enter JSS 1. I need money to get a new uniform and buy some new books. If I don’t come to the market to sell these bags, I won’t be able to go to school. I also have two younger brothers. They stay with my mother at home.” he added.
However, it was not the same with Abosede Salau who had to discontinue her studies to keep her younger ones in school.
While other children were busy in the classroom during school hours, Abosede went around with her mum to engage in menial jobs to sustain their family. It was an outright display of brilliance by the 13-year-old girl during a brief conversation our correspondent had with her.
The vicissitude of life, however, took its toll on the promising young girl who used to be a school prefect as she reluctantly withdrew from school due to the unavailability of funds needed to get a new uniform.
A situation that coincided with the absence of a father made her to relax the idea of continuing her education and consider joining her single mother to meet the financial needs of the family.
She said, “We used to live in the north before we moved to Lagos. Everything was going fine from the start until my father’s business stopped moving well. Since he could not provide for the family like before, he decided to travel back to the north to look for a job. And since he left, we have not heard from him till now. My mum has tried calling his phone repeatedly but could not reach him. And since the cleaning job my mother does could not sustain us, I had to join her.”
Abosede revealed further that her mother had taken up some other jobs since she joined her.
“She worked only as a cleaner before, but now that I have joined her, she has been doing laundry too. After we are done cleaning people’s compound, we also ask if they have dirty clothes that we can wash for them,” she added.
The International Labour Organisation defines child labour as “work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling.”
In what passed for a sheer coincidence, a group of young girls numbering five approached our correspondent who was walking towards the underpass adjacent PUNCH Place head office along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to observe a similar situation, as they held his hand demanding money.
The underpass is occupied by Internally Displaced Persons who live in different shanties under the bridge.
The eldest among them was 11 years who identified herself simply as Khadijat. With little or no educational background, Khadijat struggled to communicate as she could only manage to mutter a few incoherent English words to pass her message upon inquiries.
“We are hungry and our parents have no money to give us to eat. That is why we are out here to beg money so that we can use it to buy rice,” she disclosed. When asked about their education, she said, “None of us is schooling, except me. I went to Boko school in Kano before I came here,” she added.
A Child Rights Act that fails to act
In 2003, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo signed the Child Rights Act into law, to preserve the rights of children and protect them from exploitative labour with defaulters liable for conviction and imprisonment for five years or the payment of a fine not exceeding N500,000 depending on the gravity of the crime.
However, 17 years after, millions of Nigerian children still engage in physically challenging work to eke out a living or to support their families.
In commemoration of the 2023 World Day Against Child Labour, the Nigeria Labour Congress also called for policies that would bridge the economic inequality gap to address the increasing rate of child labour across the globe.
The NLC President, Joe Ajaero, who disclosed this at the 111th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said that some factors mitigating the issue of child labour in Nigeria include parents not working and some state governments not paying the minimum wage.
The Federal Government on Monday, July 5, said 43 per cent of Nigerian children between five and 11 years of age were involved in child labour.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Employment Kachollom Daju, who disclosed this during a walk held to commemorate the 2023 World Day Against Child Labour, described child labour as a grave concern, as it denies children of their rights to education, as well as mental and moral development.
Statistics
The 2023 labour statistics of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund revealed that, in the world’s poorest countries, slightly more than one in five children are engaged in work that is potentially harmful to their health.
The UNICEF Data about Nigeria indicated that the percentage of children (aged 5-17 years) engaged in child labour (economic activities and household chores)
The Bureau of International Forced Labour Affairs of the United States of America in its Child Labour and Forced Labour Reports stated that children in Nigeria were subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including commercial sexual exploitation and use in armed conflict, as well as quarrying granite and artisanal mining.
Harsh economic realities
From whatever point of view one chooses to describe the situation of Onyeka, Abosede, Philip and others, the conclusions are bound to be similar. Meanwhile, this is not unconnected to the harsh economic realities that have turned them into victims of circumstances.
The National Bureau of Statistics in its Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index released on November 17, 2022, announced that the number of Nigerians living in poverty stands at over 133 million.
It said the figure represents 63 per cent of the nation’s population due to a lack of access to health, education, living standards, employment, and security.
The NBS said the incidence of monetary poverty was lower than the incidence of multidimensional poverty across most states.
In the report, the NBS noted that, “In Nigeria, 40.1 per cent of people were poor, based on the 2018/19 national monetary poverty line, and 63 per cent are multi-dimensionally poor according to the National MPI 2022.
The NBS recently disclosed that inflation in the country rose to 22.41 per cent in May, which is the highest in about 19 years.
Nigeria’s inflation rate rose marginally to a new high of 22.79 per cent in June 2023 from 22.41 per cent in the previous month following the removal of fuel subsidy.
Subsidy removal and naira devaluation also pushed food inflation to 30.64 per cent in September, worsening inflationary pressures in the country.
The World Bank on its part stated during the launch of the June 2023 edition of the Nigeria Development Update in Abuja that the country had one of the highest inflation rates, which pushed an estimated four million people into poverty between January and May 2023.
The Washington-based lender also said about 7.1 million poor Nigerians would become poor if the Federal Government failed to compensate or provide palliatives for them, following the removal of fuel subsidy.
Experts speak on effects on child development
An Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Lagos State University, Dr Samuel Oluranti, said policymakers must look down and see what they can do to solve the problem of child labour.
He noted the state of the economy was responsible for the increasing rate of children hawking the streets.
He said, “In this part of the world, it is very difficult for you to define child labour in the concept of child labour itself. But, notwithstanding, we need to know that children that supposed to be in school are supposed to be in school. But they can only be in school when the parents have money to fund their academics. When the funds are not available, the children will engage in menial jobs and some other things that will make them add value to the family. The issue of income take-home needs to be addressed. The government also needs to assist those in the informal sector like loan facilities with no conditions that will stagnate them or take them off the balance of their businesses. There must be social policies in place to assist the people while taxes and levies are reduced. You will be surprised that those children that are hawking are still paying levies. Regarding education, provision must be made to help the poor. Poor children will grow to become poor adults if care is not taken because the process of their education is a process that will also be laced with poverty. Parents must also not capitalize on this to subject their children to undue labour, because some of these works are dangerous.
A consultant clinical psychologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Dr Charles Umeh, said children of school age who were subjected to child labour lack emotional growth.
Umeh noted that the children were deprived of some opportunities that affected their development.
He said, “We have emotional development and as children develop, we have some stage theories like cognition, there is a way a child should be handled so that they can develop well in terms of cognition and emotional development. Now when we deprive these children of this opportunity, that means there is going to be some impairment in their development. In the case of children hawking the streets, these are children of school age who are supposed to be in school but their parents or principal sent them to the streets to go and hawk for financial purposes. How would that child grow emotionally? They are going to feel detached. That is the beginning of low self-esteem. They start to see something different like they are missing something that makes them not to be like the other person. And low self-esteem is a mediator to so many emotions and mental health issues because a gap has been created in their psyche and that gap must be filled. They look around for someone who is missing such privileges and they meet themselves on the street and develop the street culture. Then that could lead to some of these aberrant behaviours you see in some of them.
Human Rights and Public Interest lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, said the lack of proper mechanisms and resources were not put in place by the government to ensure that children were protected.
Effiong explained that the government did not care about the children or young people in the country generally with the passage of the Child Rights Act which has been domesticated in every state.
He said, “One would have thought that the proper mechanism and resources will be put in place to ensure that children are protected but that is not the case. What has to happen is for the government to realize its responsibilities to the citizens, particularly children in the state and ensure that they are protected and that their rights are equally respected and enforced. The Child Rights Act needs to be fully implemented. If you look at the acts and laws in various states, there are provisions for enforcement committees and so on that are supposed to be constituted to ensure implementation, but that has not happened. Ministries of welfare and social welfare are supposed to look into this kind of matter but poor implementation, poor funding and lack of political will are what have impeded the implementation of the Child Rights Act.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Gbenga Omotoso, said the state had been at the forefront of promoting the rights of children in the state.
Omotosho added that the state government has a law against street trading and hawking, and we have been arresting people to court.
He, however, noted that some of them were out on the streets because the state population kept increasing everyday.
He said, “If people come into Lagos, they come in droves. That is why we said we would like to have data on the number of people we have in the state so that we can be able to prepare for anybody. But those coming into the state don’t buy the idea because they have the erroneous impression that it is all about taxation, whereas it is not about that. We need data on everybody in Lagos for us to be able to make provisions for everybody in the budget. All these we take out of the streets, some of them have left their home state and some find their way back to the street. There is also a criminal angle to it as some use these kids to go and beg and at the end of the day, they collect the proceeds from them. Last year a lot of such people were jailed, but the thing is that when you’re trying to enforce the law, some of them hide under the umbrella of human rights activists, but in a civilised it is not allowed for you to use children to beg. We are also encumbered by lack of space, where to keep them because they keep on coming into Lagos. The state is also at the forefront of implementing the child rights law. In Lagos State, anyone who violates the law won’t go unpunished.
