PUNCH
As Nigerians trudge along with the current harsh economic realities, families have found it difficult to feed their children, thereby leading to a significant increase in child labour in recent times. Dayo Oyewo in this report captures the pains and agony of these young ones.
THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD Esther Onyeka sat by the roadside under the scorching sun with a tray of groundnuts placed beside her. The fair-looking hawker wore a distraught countenance while she broke out droplets of sweat on her face. She had just finished running at the pace of a moving commercial bus to meet up with a passenger who bought her groundnuts.
Upon moving closer to her, it was discovered that the last passenger had taken a wrap of groundnuts away while she was trying to provide his balance and collect her money from him.
This situation, however, compounded the sad reality that had forced young Onyeka to become a street hawker on the streets of Lagos State.
“My gain from the groundnuts I am selling has reduced,” a frustrated Onyeka voiced out as our correspondent approached her to know what happened. “When I gave him the groundnuts, he brought out a N1000 note and as I wanted to find his balance before collecting the money, the bus had already moved,” she further gesticulated while facing another hawker who also approached her.
Onyeka lamented that her struggling mother wouldn’t be happy if she did not sell all the groundnuts.
“If I don’t sell all these groundnuts, my mother won’t be happy and there is no way I will eat and go to school. The money I get from the sales is what I use to support myself,” she said.
Unlike the older ones hawking other items along the Iyana Ipaja corridor in the Alimosho Local Government Area of the state, Onyeka started hawking about four months ago.
Mindful of the time frame she had to sell the groundnuts before heading home, she reluctantly gave our correspondent a condition before she could grant him audience which was to buy some wraps from her.
After getting an affirmative nod, she explained that it was a decision reached by her parents to support the family.
“My parents gave birth to three children and I am the second of them. I didn’t know how to hawk and coming down here was not my personal decision. It was my parents who suggested that I join my friends who are hawking to also support their families. And this was after my father started complaining that his business was not doing well like before. He sells second-hand clothes in the evening at Oshodi while my mum sells fruits.
“My dad used to be responsible for the family’s upkeep and got support from my mum until he started to complain about poor sales. He struggled to still keep providing for the family but it did not work out. It was so bad that he even had to borrow money to come home sometimes. Since then, my mother has provided the money for the family to cover up for my dad. But a while after that, my mum also started to complain that people were owing her. This affected our schooling as we often stayed at home due to school fees or some certain materials we were instructed to bring. That was when my parents agreed that I should start selling bottled water by the roadside. But whenever I sit there, I don’t usually make sales. That was why I joined others who hawk their products.”
Although it was not too comfortable for her when she started, “I no longer feel shy because of my schoolmates given that I am already getting used to it,” she added.
No fewer than seven underage children were seen hawking various types of items ranging from snacks, oranges, bottled water and handkerchiefs at the location as they pace the corridor of the road, hastening up to attend to bus passengers and commuters who beckoned at them.
This was a similar sight at various traffic points along the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway corridor as under-age children slugged it out with their adult counterparts to make ends meet through sales from the products they hawked.
Increase in child hawking
From Igando to Iyana-Ipaja, Ketu-Ojota to Maryland, and Ile-Epo to Oshodi, our correspondent toured some locations familiar with the regular sight of children engaging in street trading in the state. It was, however, observed that there had been a significant increase in the number of children engaging in street hawking. Although not many would notice the changes as their presence across the locations used to be a usual sight for Lagos motorists and residents, some adults among them however confirmed the development.
One of them, Stanley Aduda, said, “Most of us come from different places and we meet at this point to sell our markets. We also know ourselves and when new faces join us. But we have been having some new young ones among us in the past few months. Ordinarily, we see an increase in the number of children when schools are on holidays, but we now see them in huge numbers when there is a holiday or not.”
Victims of accident, robbery and rape
Due to their age and body frame, most of these child hawkers have been exposed to a series of hazards, including road accidents…
