There seems to be no respite for child labour in Nigeria, despite the passage of the Child Rights Act, which seeks to guarantee their basic rights. Reports by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) show that about 43 per cent of Nigerian children are victims of child labour. TOBA AGBOOLA reports.
For Fatima Ibrahim, a 10-year-old girl, selling chilled sachet water along Agege/Abeokuta Expressway, Lagos, has been a major source of income for her widowed mother.
Fatima faces the risk of being run down by fast-moving vehicles.
Before dashing across a busy motorway to sell water to drivers stopping for fuel at a filling station on the expressway, Fatima said: “I have to sell pure water every day to help my mother to feed the family.
“I lost my father two years ago and there is no one looking after us. We survive mostly from this. My mother does domestic chores to earn money,” she said.
Hadiza Bankole, 14, carried a bucket of plastic sachets filled with chilled water and mineral drinks ran toward a commuter bus at Ikorodu road, Lagos.
“Every day, I stand here by the roadside, come rain, come sunshine, trying to earn money to help my parents.
“It’s a risky business as sometimes accidents do occur. Last year, two girls were killed by reckless drivers,” said Hadiza
Fatima and Hadiza are among several boys and girls between 10 and 15 hawking on the ever-busy Ikorodu road.
A young girl, Agnes Emmanuel, 13, also sells peanuts at Iyana Ipaja/Mangoro on the Agege-Abeokuta Expressway, where she braves the scorching sun and heavy rainfall on a daily basis and faces the risk of getting run over by motorists.
She and millions of other kids are why child labour remains a major source of worry in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
Child labour has continued to be a pressing problem in the country.
Findings conducted by ILO recently revealed that the high prevalence of child labour in Nigeria is alarming, considering the law on Child Rights Act 2003 that prohibits such ugly developments in the country.
According to a joint report issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), ILO and United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) along with a number of other organisations, more than half of Nigeria’s 79 million children between the ages of five and 17 are put to work, mostly in hazardous conditions.
It stated further that 70 per cent of Nigerian children are engaged in street hawking, 23 per cent in domestic work and 15 per cent in street begging, among other jobs.
It also defines child labour as any work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development.
Every June 12 marks World Day against Child Labour. It highlights the plight of children across the world involved in hazardous work.
The occasion also brings together governments, local authorities, civil society and international workers and employers organisations to point out the child labour problem and define the guidelines to help child labourers.
ILO, in its yearly reports, urged campaigns against child labour and promotion of safe and healthy work for youth of legal working age.
ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said globally, about 73 million children are doing hazardous work, while 153 million children aged five to 17 are still in child labour, said no child under 18 should perform hazardous work as stipulated in the ILO’s conventions on child labour.
According to him, these children are toiling in mines and fields, factories and homes, exposed to pesticides and other toxic substances, carrying heavy loads or working long hours.
Ryder stressed that the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda reaffirms the urgency of eliminating the worst forms of child labour, which includes hazardous work, the need to promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, and sets the target of ending all forms of child labour by 2025.
In Nigeria, while the NOIPolls (a public opinion poll)survey stated that most of the labour jobs showed that majority are out-of-school children, it further showed that more females of about 73 per cent are engaged in street hawking, while their male counterpart stood at 69 per cent.
The survey showed that the Southsouth and Southwest geo-political zones have the highest number of street hawkers with 84 and 79 per cent.
In terms of domestic work, the poll showed that children are involved in street begging, cargo loading and bus conductor.
Some of the reasons associated with children venturing into hazardous work are attributed to high level of poverty, neglect, illiteracy and lack of basic education.
The President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba, stressed that many states were yet to domesticate the Child Rights Act.
He said if every state was able to domesticate the Act, it would go a long way, noting that all states must make the domestication a central policy for development.
Wabba, who said labour would do a lot of advocacy and policy engagement to ensure that the abolition of child labour was achieved, also urged the government to address the issue of social justice, inequality, social security, as this was the only way to ensure abolition of child labour in the country.
He, however, called on the government at all levels to implement free education from primary to tertiary and offer other benefits, such as scholarships and bursary, as it would encourage the children of the poor to continue to access education.
He also said the best way to address the issue of inequality and poverty was to give the children of the poor quality education. He said: “Because by the time they are educated, they would find their level in the society but if we denied them education and make them to work under precarious conditions then their situation becomes worse in the society.
“Like in the Nigeria context, children are seen hawking not because that is what they want to do but because there is extreme poverty and these children are used to augment the family income.”
National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) Director-General Julie Okah-Donli said effective implementation of the Act would help tame the menace.
She said the agency’s operatives have been dispatched to areas and establishments where the rights of children are being taken for granted. The areas, she identified include confined institutions, quarries, cocoa plantations and others.
“The worst scenario is the case of children rescued from some difficult environments due to insurgency who are further subjected to unimaginable level of sexual abuse and exploitation by the very personalities that have sworn to protect them,” she said.
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Okah-Donli called on children to speak out when abused so that help could come their way speedily.
The Secretary-General, Human Capital Providers Association of Nigeria (HuCaPAN), Solomon Adebosin, said child labour should not be encouraged in any work environment.
As many underage children must have been forced into child labour due to poverty, Adebosin noted that it is not a child’s responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the home either due to poverty or any means.
As HuCaPAN members, he said: “We have code of conduct for all our members, it ensure that no worker is treated below what the law requires and the law also states that nobody that is under aged should be employed. We have our law that we adhere to.
“Our mantra is wherever a Nigerian is found working; he or she must have a decent work. Decent work is not child labour, it will only come by empowering that kind of child and educating them. We don’t encourage child labour. People we engage are people who are qualified by virtue of age and fit to be employed.”
Though child labour is fast becoming a future-threatening menace plaguing many Nigerian children, part of the steps being taken to curb it is the efforts by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) alongside partners (Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs) to establish a Comprehensive Child Protection Plan for the country, including a budget specifically for Child Protection services in the MDAs involved.
A large percentage of the poll said the government should ensure that the Child Rights Act 2003 is adopted and enforced by the states and ensure that children get free education that will shape them into productive individuals in the society.
Implementing an existing law that will limit the number of children people can have to help reduce the growing population is also described as imperative.