Whenever Tunde Adeniyi begs for food or menial jobs, not only does his filthy look rends one’s heart, but also the songs of sorrow that accompany his outcries of thirst and hunger.
Adeniyi starves because as a kid, he is on his own – he has parents who do not care whether he lives or dies. He lives a life of penury and gnashing of teeth. “Give me job or food, any food, I’ll eat!” he wails.
While eight-year-old Adeniyi solely wallows in pain for being rejected as a kid, seven-year-old Uche Obiora is neglected by his own parents – but he is not worried about that.
As young as he is, Obiora can smoke two sticks of cigarettes at a time and a packet of it daily – outsmarting his peers in smoking competition. At school hours, Obiora and his out-of-school playmates carouse in the outskirts of Abuja hunting for menial jobs to eke out a living.
More than one in every five children is involved in child labour activities in the world. Child labourers are either too young to work or are involved in hazardous activities which can affect their mental, social, physical and educational development. Children aged 5 to 17 involved in these activities are considered child labourers.
A report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on the Demographic Bulletin 2020 reveals that across the various forms of child labour, girl child and females faces the most hazardous activities that may compromise their physical, mental, social or educational development.
Data gleaned from NBS also showed the number of females involved in child labour for 1 to 17 years of age stood at 410 in 2019, while males involved in all forms of child labour are 120.
In 2020, there was a record 382, while male child has a total of 118.
In Nigeria, 43 percent of children within the age bracket of 5-11 years are engaged in child labour activities for at least 1 hour per day.
“Economic hardship exacts a toll on millions of families worldwide – and in some places, it comes at the price of a child’s safety. Roughly 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020, with 9 million additional children at risk due to the impact of COVID-19,” the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says.
The Child Right Act (CRA) is the law that ensures the rights of every child in Nigeria and this law was established in Nigeria in 2003. Nineteen (19) years later, only twenty-five(25) states out of the thirty-six(36) states in Nigeria have implemented the Child Labour Right Act.
However, eleven(11) states are yet to adopt the CRA laws in the federation. The lives of more children are at risk due to this.
The eleven states that are yet to adopt CRA are Adamawa, Kebbi, Yobe, Sokoto, Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa.
The table above shows that sexual exploitation has the highest record of children from 5-14 years involved in child labour activities across all the years. Forced labour is the second highest record, followed by child domestic labour. Forced marriage has the lowest record of children involved in child labour activities in all the three years
Overall, experts say the detrimental effect of conflict on child labor can be mitigated by school feeding interventions.
A recent report by the Gazette, shows over $100 million spent on feeding school children since President Muhammad Buhari’s regime began in 2015 till date, yet there are still over 20 million out-of-school children.