CHILD LABOUR: A silent MONSTER
CHILD LABOUR – RIFE IN NIGERIA
Considering the growth number of children being forced to work for long hours, child labour has been recognized as a major social problem in our society and in every other country.
It must be emphasized that child labour is one of the social problems Nigeria has had to contend with over the years. Meanwhile, for some reasons, others argue that child labour is not just a social problem; rather, they postulate that it stands in the way of vital education.
However, for the purpose of academics, child labour is not just standing in the way of vital education as some believe but it is the forcing of children to work; not just during or after school hours but ignorantly or deliberately exposing them to long hours of physical labour.
A university Professor, Sarah Oloko says that the tradition of forcing children to work goes back many years and that most adults in the country today have been victims one time or the other.
She however adds that this is having a negative effect on the education of many young people living in Nigeria and that there is a difference between children helping their parents out and those being forced to work in dangerous conditions.
She went further by saying, “when children, especially young ones are exposed to long hours of work in harsh and dangerous environments, which threaten their lives and limbs as well as jeopardize their normal physical, mental, emotional and moral development, it is termed child labour”.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), reports that based on a nation-wide survey of child trafficking, approximately 19 percent (%) of school children and 40 percent (%) of street children have been forced into child labour.
According to the Save Our Soul (SOS) statistics, their latest figure shows that in Nigeria, there are over 15 million working children in the country with 7.9 million are boys while the girls are 7.3 million.
This is a problem has been noted and it is more prevalent in some countries particularly in third world countries. In these countries, poverty has been revealed as a major factor behind the numbers of youngsters being forced to get jobs, as parent consider working more economically beneficial than sending their children to school.
In the eastern part of the country and some southern states such as Cross River and Akwa Ibom has been the focus of trafficking children for labour and some cases, human sacrifice.
It must be emphasized that child trafficking is the end product of child labour. Most children are either abducted or leave home with traffickers who sometimes promise them educational opportunities or other enticing incentives. They are taken to places in foreign countries (according to the press, principally to Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’ Ivoire and Gabon) and sold into servitude in agriculture, domestic labour or full blown prostitution.
By SANDRA OKEKE
