By Linus Aleke
“Child labour and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labour of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labour to the end of time”. Grace Abbott
The above quote by famous American social worker, Ms. Grace Abbott, aptly captured the intricate, sordid, agonising, and infinite circle that results from the amorous and unceremonious intercourse between the two unfriendly kids’ phenomenon – poverty and child labour.
Child Labour, according to Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, means, “Work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development”.
It also posited that a child is anyone below the age of 18.
Data from the website of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), shows that “nearly 1 in 10 children are subjected to child labour worldwide, with some forced into hazardous work through trafficking.”
In Nigeria, it is common to see kids of school age hawking all manners of products, in streets, construction sites, motor parks, markets, mechanic or furniture workshops, and even highways in major cities of the federation, during school hours.
As Abbott pointed out, this vicious circle of child labour is poverty induced, which of course makes it difficult to tackle in Nigeria because again of the nation’s inglorious record of being the poverty capital of the world.
The UN agency also, posited that economic hardship exacts a toll on millions of families worldwide – and in some places, it comes at the price of a child’s safety.
Frightening statistics from the site, also disclosed that roughly 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020, with nine million additional children at risk due to the impact of COVID-19.
This, it added accounts for nearly one in 10 children worldwide, stressing that almost half of them are in hazardous work that directly endangers their health and development.
Giving reason for the propeller of this ugly issue, the data noted that most often, child labour occurs when families face financial challenges or uncertainty – whether due to poverty, sudden illness of a caregiver, or job loss of a primary wage earner.
It is on the premise of the foregoing that municipal, national, and international principalities, including, multilateral institutions and their agencies are working round the clock to implement the mechanism, already put in place at various levels, to mitigate if not eradicate in its entirety the venomous threats of poverty and child labour.
In Nigerian for instance, the government at all levels, the media, civil society organisations, and of course, donor agencies and the United Nations are not also relenting in ensuring that the cancerous child labour is steamed out of the societal system.
For example, as part of the effort to fight the menace of child labour to a standstill in Nigeria, the federal government signed into law legal instruments, known as the Child Rights Act 2003,” to help in crumbling the empire of child labour.
According to Wikipedia, Nigeria, in 2003 adopted the Child Rights Act to domesticate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Children’s Rights Act of 2003 expands the human rights bestowed to citizens in Nigeria’s 1999 constitution to children”.
Meanwhile, 34 of the 36 States of the federation have fully domesticated the Child Rights Act, which is a law that deals with issues of child abuse, child labour, and forced marriage, among others, in Nigeria.
The Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen, gave this insight while appearing at the 59th edition of the Ministerial Media Briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa Abuja.
“The Child Rights Act had been domesticated by just 13 States as of 2019, raising concerns in Government and Child Rights circles,” she added.
Interestingly, the United Nations System in Nigeria is also complementing this aforesaid national effort to ensure that the fight against child labour, in Nigeria triumphs at the end of the battle.
It was on the premise of this that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) under the Accelerating Action for the Elimination of Child Labour in Supply Chains in Africa (ACCEL Africa) project, completed the renovation of Oke Agunla Community School, Ondo State, and enrolled in school, a total of 110 children at risk of child labour in the community.
The National Information Officer, UN Information Centre (UNIC), Dr Oluseyi Soremekun, who announced this progress against child labour in Nigeria in a statement, said, the newly completed project was part of its commitment to address the root causes of child labour and accelerate its elimination in Nigeria through targeted actions in the Cocoa and Artisanal Small scale Gold Mining (ASGM) supply chains.
At the handover of the newly renovated L. A. Primary School, Oke Agunla in Ondo State, on 9th March 2023, the Director of the ILO Abuja Country Office for Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, and Liaison office for ECOWAS, Ms Vanessa Phala, said, the day was a significant show of the importance of education in the elimination of child labour as emphasised in the ILO Convention 182, on the elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
Quoting current statistics, Phala noted that nearly 28 per cent of children aged 5 to 11 years, and 35 per cent of children aged 12 to 14 years in child labour were out of school.
She said that in Nigeria, according to the last National modular child labour survey country report, there are not less than 15 million children working children, with about 6 million in child labour and half the number trapped in hazardous work.
“The impact of this indecent exposure of our children to unfair labour practices is visible in our collective safety and development, as out-of-school children are vulnerable to the negative influences of criminals who take advantage of their innocence to sustain criminal activities from one generation to the next,” She acknowledged.
On the reason behind the rehabilitation of the school under the ACCEL Africa project funded by the Government of the Netherlands, the Director explained: “The ACCEL Project supported the enrolment and re-enrolment in school, of 110 children at risk of child labour in Oke Agunla.
These children, she said, have been provided with back-to-school kits (school bags, textbooks, uniforms, notebooks, sandals, & socks).
He added, “We are recording increased interest to attend school,” stressing however, that “This interest in school was dampened by the inadequate situation of the community primary school.”
She further said, “It is for this reason that the project decided to contribute to the renovation of this school, to foster school attendance and increase academic performances for the children.”
Phala expressed hope that the children of Oke-Agunla would grow up to be the leaders their village desired, as well as the citizens of whom their country could be proud.
Representing the Ondo State Government, the Coordinator of the Ondo State Operations Coordinating Unit, Mr Olaoluwa Bankole, assured that the government would complement the kind gestures of ILO-ACCEL by addressing the problem of staff shortage in the school.
He expressed the appreciation of the Ondo State Government to ILO-ACCEL Africa for the tremendous support to quality education in the state by renovating the Oke Agunla Community School, Ondo State.
Speaking, the Regent of Oke Agunla, Her Royal Majesty, Olufunmilayo Olowookere, expressed her deep appreciation to ILO Abuja and ACCEL Africa for the honour bestowed upon the community through the renovation of the community school by getting the children back to school and reducing cases of child labour and out-of-school children in the Oke Agunla community.
The statement recalled that the L. A Primary School, Oke Agunla, Ondo State, was established in 1955 and has remained the only school in the community to date.
“However, years of neglect have led to increasing deterioration of the school building, with all the classrooms, except one, without a roof. In no time, parents withdrew their children from the school as the only available classroom for teaching and learning also had leaky roofs and was overcrowded,” the statement further recalled.
Representing the Hon. Minister of Labour and Employment, the Director of Inspectorate, Mrs. Olaolu Olaitan, reiterated that Child Labour is a menace that the Federal Government has continued to fight with the support of ILO and the Government of the Netherlands, through the ACCEL Africa Project.
She encouraged the pupils of the school and members of Oke Agunla community to make good use of the opportunity presented by the newly renovated school so that their future would indeed be great.
The Head Teacher of the school, Pastor Bello Ayodele, disclosed that the enrolment figure of the school increased after the renovation of six classrooms and eight toilet facilities in the school premises.
