RIGHTS-NIGERIA: Child Labour Still a Major Problem

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, May 28 2003 (IPS) - Kadijat Alao moves from kiosk to kiosk hawking cigarettes, matches and biscuits at the national theatre complex in Lagos where artists and journalists hang out after work.

But on Tuesday, 11-year-old Alao did not go to school. The government had declared Tuesday a public holiday to celebrate Children’s Day.

The holiday did not make any sense to her. ”We were asked not to come to school today (Tuesday). I don’t know why,” Alao, who helps her mother in business, told IPS.

”I help my mother so that she can make enough money to take care of me and my junior brother,” she said.

Alao is one of the millions of children noticeable on the streets of Nigeria who ply their trade along the busy traffic jams, selling items ranging from bottled water to biscuits to support their parents. Like Alao, most of these children come from broken homes.

Some of the children are self-employed. ”I do not know anybody in Lagos; so I sell recharge cards, the proceeds of which I use for feeding and clothing. Before the introduction of GSM phones, I used to sell water in the streets of Lagos,” Uche Ihilegbu, a 15-year-old school dropout from eastern Nigeria, told IPS on Wednesday.

Ihilegbu came to Lagos five years ago.

Eight million children, or 70 percent of school-aged children, are involved in child labour in Nigeria. Many of the children are used as guides by their beggar parents, denied education, food and shelter, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

About 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 years are working world-wide, according to the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Marking Children’s Day in Nigeria, Bishop Tenimo Adudua of the Anglican Church said if children’s education must be given priority, then parents must refrain from engaging them in street trading.

”Poverty is not an excuse for parents to jeopardise the life of your child. It is unfair for a father to subject his child to go and buy him beer. We lose so many children every year due to careless errands,” said Aisha Ismail, the out-going minister of Women Affairs and Youth Development.

Children drawn from all parts of the country converged on Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, where they held a Children’s Parliament with President Olusegun Obasanjo. The session centred on the Bill of Rights of the Child, HIV and Education.

The Child Rights Bill, which was signed into law on Tuesday by President Obasanjo, was initially rejected by parliament – some for religious, others for cultural, reasons – when it was presented in 2001. But after criticisms by civil groups, legislators were forced to re-introduce and passed it recently.

The bill seeks, among other things, to check the abuses which Nigerian children have been exposed to over the years. These include hawking, child trafficking, child labour, early marriage and child prostitution.

Ezio Giani Muzi, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, applauded government for signing the bill into law. ”We join Nigeria’s children and other partners in applauding this proof of commitment to fulfilling the rights of Nigerian Children,” said Muzi in a statement, made available to IPS on Tuesday.

The Children’s Parliament called for harsher punishments for parents who abuse their children. Some provisions of the new Child Rights Act prescribe a fine of about 2000 Naira (20 U.S. dollars), but the parliament want jail terms ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment for violators.

It also demanded life imprisonment for child marriage which under the new Act carries a fine of 2000 Naira (20 U.S. dollars).