Poverty has pushed underage children in Bauchi State to engage in street hawking and all sorts of menial jobs to survive. In 2015, a United Nations poverty index report said 86.6 per cent of the state’s residents were poor as it ranks eighth poorest in the country. DAVID ADENUGA reports on the amount of hardship faced by the concerned children, who are also out of school.
It was a sunny afternoon on January 14 when the reporter beckoned to Hajara Abdul-Hameed, a ten-year-old girl hawking sachet water, at the other side of the ever-busy Wunti Road in the Bauchi metropolis.
Wasting no time, she waded through the crowd, dragging her younger sister, Mariam (6) who also was also hawking sachet water withher. She carefully lowered the tray of sachet water on her head as she approached her would-be buyer, with a weary smile on her face.
She however declined response to enquiries on why she was into hawking. She seemed uninterested in talking about herself to a stranger. But after much persuasion, Hajara managed to reveal a little about her family composition before she vanished from sight.
Speaking through an interpreter, she had said: “I live with my parents here. My father has three wives and 20 children. My mother on her part has seven children. She used the proceeds from the sachet water sales to provide food for us.”
The reporter later traced Hajara and her sister to where they lived, with the help of fellow hawkers.
At their home in a backwaters community in the Bauchi metropolis, the reporter met Hajara’s mother who said she would not speak without the consent of her husband.
Unfortunately, the husband (Hajara ‘s father) was yet to get back from the office where he worked as a security guard. After a long wait for his return, the reporter decided to put a call through to him.
Asked why his two daughters were into hawking, Abdul-Hameed denied knowing they were into the business.
“I am not aware that any of my children is into hawking. Maybe their mothers sent them while I was not around,” he said, declining further comments.
The menace of child street hawking and child labour has been on the rise in the state. Children aged between 6 and 14 spend between seven to eight hours every day at the ever-busy Wunti Junction, running up and down as they chase motorists and commuters for patronage.
No fewer than 50 of them were sighted at the junction alone not to talk of the major markets and other cities across the state.
In 2019, Governor Bala Mohammed had lamented the leading position of the state in the number of out-of-school children despite the positive efforts of the government in the education sector.
Mohammed, who spoke at a town hall meeting, said out of the 10.5 million out-of-school children in the country, Bauchi is host to over 1.2 million, next only to Kano’s 1.4 million. The situation, he said, had become worrisome to his administration.
He opined that the influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) contributed to the increasing number of out-of-school kids while the state is another peaceful haven for troubled Northeast residents.
But the data published in August last year by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that Bauchi has fallen to the fifth position with 354,373.
In 2015, a United Nations poverty index report indicated that 86.6 per cent of the state’s residents were poor.
Mohammed corroborated same when he declared the state as the eighth poorest in the country. The governor, represented by his deputy, Baba Tela, disclosed this in Bauchi during a town hall meeting with the Senate Committee on Poverty Alleviation and Social Investment Programmes held in November last year.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in its 2013 report, one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria. The UN Agency said although primary education is officially free and compulsory, about 10.5 million of the country’s children aged between 5 and 14 years are not in school.
It added that only 61 per cent of 6-11-year-olds regularly attend primary school while only 35.6 per cent of children aged between 36 and 59 months receive early childhood education.
It said further that the education deprivation in northern Nigeria is driven by various factors, including economic barriers and socio-cultural norms and practices that discourage formal education, especially for girls.
“In the northeastern and north-western states, 29 per cent and 35 per cent of Muslim children respectively receive Quranic education, which does not include basic skills such as literacy and numeracy,” the UN agency stated, adding that the government considers children attending such schools to be officially out of school.
Data also published in the 2018 digest of basic education statistics by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) revealed that 10 states in Northern Nigeria had about 5.2 million of the country’s about 10.2 million out-of-school children.
‘We deliver proceeds from hawking to our parents’
Findings made by The Nation revealed that hawking has become a form of business for parents of these out-of-school children who receive a certain percentage that goes into their purse.
For instance, Abubakar Usman (15), the first child in a family of six, said he shares part of the financial responsibilities of his parents.
From the sales he makes daily, he gives his mother half of the money, which she uses in providing food for him and his siblings.
According to him, he and his younger brother sell up to 10 bags of sachet water in a day and make about N700 profit.
Abdullahi, whose life ambition is to become a doctor, said his parents are not financially capable of helping him to further his education after he completed primary education at Kobi Primary School.
Similarly, Abdullahi Kabiru (10) who is also the first child in a family of four delivers the proceeds of the sachet water sales to his mother. Kabiru, whose dream is to join the Nigerian Army wakes up as early as 8 am and sells till the sun goes down.
Narrating his ordeal, he said he wants the state government to assist his parents, saying hawking sachet water under the harsh sun was taking a toll on his life.
“I hawk pure (sachet) water at the Wunti Roundabout and give the proceeds to my mother. The money is used to feed us. By the time I’m done for the day, I find it difficult to walk,” he said.
Zainab Rabiu (8), the second child in her family, wishes to be a doctor in the future but now has to content herself with hawking kolanut. Asked why she was not in school, she said her parents wanted her to participate in the family’s business.
Ibrahim Auwal (13) is not an exception. He hawks in the afternoon after returning from school and is currently a class five pupil at the Kobi Primary school.
“I sell between five and six bags in a day and make between N500 and N600 daily. We feed with the money that I make while I buy clothes with my share,” he said.
Children’s exposure to dangerous living contravenes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child views childhood, a period before age 18, as a special, protected time in which children must be allowed to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity.
Nigeria itself is a signatory to the convention, which was established in 1989
Article 28 (1a) and (e) of the UN CRC state that “States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and to achieve this right progressively and based on an equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
“Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;
“Take measures to encourage regular attendance at schools and the reduction of drop-out rates.”
The convention makes it an offence to involve children in an activity that negatively impacts their health and well-being. The convention also emphasises the need for the government to protect children from exploitation.
In addition to the convention, Nigeria’s Child Rights Act has similar provisions, which say children should be protected from trafficking and/or street hawking, though the Act is yet to be domesticated in some states, including Bauchi.
Child hawkers susceptible to rape, prostitution, drugs addiction, say experts
Experts have explained that the exposure of underage children to such dangerous living poses danger to their health and well-being.
A female lecturer, Engr. Jamila Adamu of the Department of Mechanical Engineering Department, at the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi described the act as a form of Child Labour or Child Slavery.
She opined that the government should come up with a long-term plan, saying child hawking cannot be immediately eradicated.
She said: “Child hawkers are susceptible to rape, street bullying and other vices. To some, it may lead to prostitution or drug addiction. But if we are to look at it, it’s not something that would be completely eradicated within the shortest period”
“If we look at the number of those kids on the streets, they are many. For the government to come into play, they need to have a long-term plan. Maybe they can say by 2025, street hawking by underage would be completely eradicated.”
“After they have been given enough time to leave the streets, underage children can then be completely taken away from the streets once the government puts up a plan that in the next five to 10 years, there won’t be underage hawkers”
She explained that child hawking goes beyond lack of education as the majority of the kids are on the streets because their parents cannot even feed themselves not to talk of the kids they have.
“As you know, even transporting the kids to school exceeds the fees the government has paid for their education. If the government is to come in here, they have to give these children free transportation, as well as free meals.”
Engr. Jamila lamented that since the kids are not computer-literate, they hardly benefit from some government interventions.
According to her, the government must devise a means to see that they come to their level in terms of how they can render help adding that they should communicate with them in their local dialect.
She advised that though not all the children can be given full scholarship, they can be given free basic education in terms of vocational training schools as an alternative.
Speaking on the non-domestication of the Child Rights Act in the state, she said many families would suffer if the government does not put structures in place before enacting the law.
“You could imagine the impact it will make. The majority of families survive on hawking,” she said.
The Commissioner for Women Affairs, Hajara Gidado, did not answer the calls put across to her or reply to a text message sent by the reporter. But a source at the ministry who spoke in confidence disclosed that the reason why the Child Rights Act is yet to be enacted into law is because some of the contents of the document clash with the culture and traditions of the people of the state.
He expressed optimism that after all the modalities have been taken care of, it will be passed into law.
The source said: “You know the Child rights Act was taken to the House of Assembly, but we have been having problems with some of the contents of the document because it clashes with the culture and traditions of the state.
“Both the Ministry of Justice and the House of Assembly are currently working on it.”
We have returned 153,398 out-of-school children this year – BASUB
The Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board (BASUB) said it has returned 153,398 out-of-school children to the classroom under the Better Education Service Delivery for All programme.
Mohammed Abdullahi, spokesman of the board, explained that Bauchi is one of the states in the North benefiting from the Better Education Service Delivery (BESD), a programme launched by the World Bank which to address the issue of out-of-school children.
According to him, the project which took off during the Bala Mohammed administration started about a year ago.
In his words: “BESDA is a World Bank programme in collaboration with the federal and state governments to return out-of-school children to school.
“In the first phase of the exercise which was carried out last year under the project, 94,000 pupils were returned to school in nine local government areas, and this year, seven local government areas were added, which brought the number of the local government areas to 16 out of 20.”
He added that a community mapping was carried out in October 2021 in 16 local government areas where they identified 1,220,750 out-of-school children, adding that the number is worrisome because out of the number, 488,300 are male while 732,450 are female, and the state is expected to return at least 153,398 to school.
According to him, the local government areas that registered for the programme included Alkaleri, Bauchi, Dambam, Darazo, Itas Gadau, Misau, Katagum, Zaki, Shira, Giade, Jamaare, Toro, Dass, Ganjuwa, Ningi, and Gamawa.
“The programme caters for the welfare of the pupils by providing a conducive atmosphere for learning for them.
“We provide all learning and instructional materials, to them. We provide water, toilets, soap, uniform, disable cycles to ease their transportation to school, and we provide special needs for the pupils.
“We build temporary leaning shades and equip them with desks and chairs, and we provide mats, blankets and uniforms for the pupils.”