Job Osazuwa
It was apparently a tough task for him. Michael Kenneth (not real name) held a shovel that was almost the same height with him. He was ready for the day’s job.
His father is a bricklayer and his eight-year-old son, Michael, had accompanied him to the site to contribute his own little quota to the family’s income. The kind of job he was being introduced to is strictly for adults, who are physically and mentally prepared for it. But there he was standing in the midst of young men to execute whatever task he was given.
From all indications, he knew exactly what to do. He struggled with the heap of sand, trying hard to mix it with cement. His strength often failed him and he wasn’t really getting it right; nevertheless, he continued with the hard task.
Despite the fact that the child was under the scorching sun, he felt somehow at ease with the job. Some persons who were working at the site hailed him while others rebuffed him. The latter believed that he was being punished by his parents who were supposed to have protected him.
The reporter approached the little boy’s father, who hails from one of the South-West states, to know why he allowed his underage child to be part of that kind of hard labour.
Sounding indifferent, he replied: “He is my son and he is a very strong boy. I am not going to pay him for the small work he will do. Schools are on holiday because of the coronavirus. Instead of him to keep playing or doing nothing at home, l decided to bring him to work with me. He eats food every day, so there’s nothing wrong if he works for the food he eats.
“Gradually, he will become stronger and perfect for the job. I don’t allow him to work for many hours so that it won’t look as if I am punishing him. When he is hungry, I will buy him food. This is the normal thing at his age; just the way I was tutored by my father. He will grow up to be a strong man. I am very proud of him.”
Apart from Michael, millions of disadvantaged Nigerian children have remained on the street day and night, where they engage in all manners of commercial activities, all in a bid to put food on their tables. From East to West and North to South, there is hardly any community in Nigeria that is free from child labour.
Many Nigerian parents or guardians subject their wards to hard labour in a bid to ensure that the children contribute in bringing food to the table. To these parents, nothing really seems wrong with this practice, which has for long become a sort of tradition in many places.
Sadly, in dire need for extra income, these young ones’ rights are, knowingly or unknowingly violated. The children have been unlucky, especially in this part of the world.
A child, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, is any person that is less than eighteen years, who is below the age of full physical development.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that child labour remains a major source of concern in Nigeria, in spite of legislative measures to tackle the menace. Child labour is defined as work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children and deprives them of opportunities for schooling and development.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the number of working children under the age of 14 in Nigeria is estimated at 15 million.
Commenting on the issue, a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Morah Ekwunoh, said that endemicity of child labour in Nigeria, involving children of between the ages of five and 10 years was utterly lugubrious and heartbreaking.
“These despicable paediatric endeavours, which appear to be in competition with light or harmattan fire in terms of spread in all states, have their precursor embedded in multi-dimensional factors of pervading poverty, economic deprivations, paucity of sustained educational opportunities and fragility of family cohesion. And, you may add, COVID-19 conundrum with the attendant closure of schools, businesses and workplaces, without correlative palliatives and related social services. All these are combined to further push the children into formal and informal labour markets, as ways and means of ensuring or securing placement of food on the family table.
“The sad and depressing products and by-products of the child labour scenario have their sinews located in the facts of their making them wide open to undue interference with their much-needed education. This is particularly robbing them of the golden opportunity of school attendance, and very long and excruciating works that are clearly physically, morally and mentally hazardous to their childhood and developmental potentialities.
“There are also consequences on their dignity, affliction of deep laceration and occasioned injuries, great moral depravity, traffic accidents, pains, and poisoning with chemical and others. It is long and unbroken chain of dangers posed to the children by this hydra-headed monster rapidly eating into the Nigerian fabric, as a nation. Certainly, hard-headed analysis of the endemic child labour afflicting the nation poses monumental danger for the future of Nigeria. Since children are the future citizens and leaders, their adequate development is being clearly stunted by this plague which has already eaten over 43 per cent of our children while roaring for more. It is akin to a building with its foundation on mud or quicksand, completely bereft of a future, particularly when juxtaposed on its Almajirai counterpart equally ravaging the North.
“Bearing in mind the philosophical postulation of Nelson Mandela that ‘there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children,’ this trend in Nigeria is as most depressing as it is unfortunate. The governments have not done enough to build interventionist embankments and dykes to stem and limit this tide, despite Nigeria being a leading signatory to, and has domesticated or ratified conventions that outlaw child labour,” he submitted.
Also commenting on the unhealthy development, especially dissecting the dangers that child labour could pose for the future of Nigeria, a human rights activist, Mr. Kunle Adegoke told the reporter that child labour has been with the country for decades. But he said the menace must be tackled urgently to have a healthy future.
Said he: “Child labour is a practice that is still common in Nigeria. This is the employment of children under the age of 18 years to engage in economic activities. People in my age actually grew up with it as children hawking merchandise for their parents or engaging in farming or trading activities for their parents. It is largely fuelled by poverty which has become endemic in our society most especially among the illiterates. An average family depends partly on income from the economic activities of its children.
“Child labour reduces the chances of educational concentration for the child. It could also be diversionary, as a child who is able to scoop little sums of money from menial jobs might not see the importance of schooling in this day and age when unemployment has become the lot of millions of graduates. Many children have been victims of hit-and-run drivers and many have been recruited into illicit drug consumption and trade by unscrupulous adults. Many have run away from homes in the course of performing child labour for their parents and have become touts in motor parks from where they graduate into thugs and brigands.
“The future of the nation depends on how best it equips its youngsters. When young children are exposed to adult activities through child labour, the nation loses its innocence and the future. The liability that child labour has created for Nigeria is beyond the petty pecuniary benefits it has given the parents. It is a menace that must be fully tackled.”
Major causes of child labour have been linked to widespread poverty, rapid urbanisation, breakdown in extended family affiliations, high school dropout rates, and lack of enforcement of legal instruments meant to protect children.
Perturbed by how more children were being used for hard labour, in May 2019, the International Labour Organisation set up a framework to eliminate child labour not just in Nigeria, but also in Mali, Malawi, Cote D’Ivoire, Egypt, and Uganda.
Experts have said that while Nigeria had ratified and domesticated several United Nations and ILO Conventions, statistics indicate that about 43 per cent of Nigerian children aged between five and 10 were still involved in child labour.
Stakeholders across different sectors have also called for the need to intensify efforts to ensure that national legislation and international conventions with regards to the elimination of child labour were enforced.
A pastor at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Lagos Province 29, Samuel Akintola, said that parents were largely to be blamed for the increasing level of child labour in Nigeria.
“Most couples are eager to have children, but they will never plan on how to take care of the children when they arrive. Gone were the days when our parents would say there was enough food in the farm. Things have changed and we are to be responsible for the proper upbringing of our children.
“The government has its role to play, but we must plan the number of children we love to have in accordance with the reality on ground; especially on what we earn,” he counselled.
Experts have said that the high level of diverse and tedious jobs that children execute in dangerous circumstances is particularly worrying. These jobs include being street vendors, beggars, car washers or watchers and shoe shiners. Others work as apprentice mechanics, hairdressers and bus conductors while a large number work as domestic servants and farm hands.