Against the background of a culture which sees no wrong in child labour, many Nigerian kids are dropping out of school to fend for themselves.
“Children of the world are innocent, vulnerable and dependent. They are also curious, active and full of hope. Their times should be one of joy and peace, of playing, living and growing. Their future should be shaped in harmony and co-operation.” – World Declaration on the Survival and Development of children.
The 14-year old boy sneaked out of school. He had to be at the parade. He was always enamoured by the colourful parade, the well starched and painstakingly ironed uniforms and of course, the booming 21-gun-salute. Really, he had to be there to see his idol, the man in the green uniform with gold buttons and red trimmings at the edge of his collar. The man who was central to the show, the man who took the salute, Shola Adetoye wanted to be just like that man. He lived all his life in the hope that one day maybe, “I will be president. I want to be an army officer because I want to be president.”
To be president of his country is little Shola’s dream. The reality is, however, different. Today, Shola serves as an apprentice “vulcanizer” to his elder brother Komolafe Adetoye. Sadly, his elder brother did not have a much brighter childhood either. When he left primary school at age 11, he decided to settle for vulcanizing for two main reasons. The first was “money no dey for my school” while the second was “I no sabi book.” Komolafe spent three years as an apprentice and an extra one as a “job man” before he fell out with his master and was forced to go it alone. But make no mistake about it, Komolafe enjoys being a “vulcanizer” especially now that he is a “master” in his own right with two boys under his tutelage.
But quite unlike Komolafe, most children who work do so because they have no other choice. According to the UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 1997 Report, ‘most children who work do not have the power of choice. They are not choosing between career options but are often pushed into work that is damaging to their development. Indeed, that is the story of Ojo Kunle, a “panel beater” in Benin, Edo State. Kunle is miles away from his dream of becoming a computer scientist. He hates to think of the distance between him and his dream job, but Kunle, in a typical Nigerian fashion, continues to keep hope alive. “Maybe,” he says, “someday, I will find somebody to help me.”
Indeed, the economic problem in Nigeria as well as most other developing countries, makes apprenticeship an attractive alternative to formal education for most poor families. Some studies have shown that children in such families opt for apprenticeship in the bid to enhance their economic standing. It is this same argument that is proffered by all perpetuators of child labour who say that in our culture (i.e. African) children are expected to contribute to the family upkeep, by doing some kind of work. Such proponents argue that in traditional African societies, children help their parents in the farm or at home. But Bert Esenberg, who was International Labour Organization’s director in Nigeria, had dismissed such arguments as cheap and baseless. Said Esenberg, “the term child labour”, covers all economic activities carried out by persons less than 15 years of age, regardless of their occupational status (wage earners, own account workers, unpaid family workers).
He, however, admitted that not all child labour is abusive. The ILO and the United Nations are more concerned with the abusive forms of child labour. “Such labour,” according to him, “denies the child a right to education and the opportunity to reach full physical and psychological development. Such children, he says, are found trapped in forced labour, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography and other kinds of work which cause immediate dangers and lasting damage.
Belinda Bobby Diei an executive director, Women’s Justice Programme. In a paper she presented at the 50th anniversary of UNICEF, Bobby Diei told a story of just how much danger working children could be exposed to. Interestingly, this particular child was a domestic servant, one of the more “acceptable” forms of child labour in Nigeria, said Bobby Diei: “The case of an 11-year-old girl was brought to our attention at the Women Justice Programme, by concerned neighbours of the street in Aguda, Surulere, Lagos where she lived. The strange nightly cries of this girl and her dehumanized appearance compelled the neighbours to petition the police. They said in the petition that “all night long we heard nerve-wrecking sounds that suggest slaps and perhaps ‘koboko’ whipping closely followed by whimpering and animalistic sounds that could have come from this child. She whines and yelps like a dog.” According to the petitioners “the girl’s appearance was horrible. No significant space is left unmarked on any part of her body and she fetches water morning to night on a daily basis even with injuries on her head.”
Very long working hours are indeed characteristic of the periods of most child workers. For instance, most of the children who spoke to ZN confirmed that their day begins at seven in the morning and ends at seven in the evening, literally dawn to dusk. But for many of these children who live with their masters, the hours stretch a little more than that. Rufus Taofik, 15 years, is one child who should know. His brother, Tunde, a bicycle repairer, brought him to Ibadan from his village. Unknown to their parents, Tunde was bringing him down to Ibadan to hand him over to a “panel beater” as an apprentice. So since Rufus has been an apprentice. He told ZN, “I dislike panel beating because I want to go to school.” Like Festus, he too wants to be an army officer. But he does not want to be president, he simply wants to be very rich; and as much as meets his eyes, riches are the prerogative of the men in uniform. Most of these apprentices are given N100.00 daily for their meals. On a bad day, they sleep on empty stomachs. Clarus as a rule also helps out at his master’s home but at night he finds a place to sleep in the shop where he works. Although Clarus likes his master, who he says “treats me like his son”, he is not happy with his brother who brought him out of the village to live the kind of life he is living now. But there are some children whose parents send away to become apprentices because they appear not to be too willing to acquire a formal education. For these parents, the argument was, that such a child is not cut out for academics. This, it appears, is the case of 12-year-old Ezekiel Okonkwo, an apprentice “mechanic.” he, said his father, a bus driver, has 6 children. He was pulled out of school in primary five because his father says “I no know book,” meaning that he was not intelligent. However, he wants to return to school and he wants to be a lawyer.” Just like the others.
His day begins at seven in the morning and ends about eight O’clock. Again, like the others, he earns N 100.00 daily on a good day.
According to Ibrahim Fall, a one time UNICEF representative in Nigeria, “a denial of the Child’s right to normal and full development occurs when and where such domestic work interferes with the child’s right to education, rest and recreation.” What all these point to is simple. If children must be allowed to develop to their fullest potentials, then government around the world must begin to view, more critically, the issue of what constitutes children’s rights and work towards protecting them from risk. However, protecting children is easier said than done, and in a culture like that of most African countries, the issues are bound to generate a lot of furor.
Take for instance a case like Norbert Okonkwo who now runs a provision shop. Okonkwo, the first son from a relatively poor home, wanted to get a good education. Reflecting on his childhood, he told the ZN, “he was doing quite well in school and his teachers were impressed. But then his family called him and told him that as their first son, he had to go and learn a trade so that I could help his younger ones. When he told his teacher in primary six, the teacher wept…” Short of shedding actual tears like Okonkwo’s teacher, many children’s rights activists are insisting that governments begin to take a closer look at the issue of child labour.
In this regard, the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF, for the year 1997, decided to draw the attention of the world to the issue of child labour. Together with the International Labour Organization, ILO, UNICEF poised to vehemently fight all forms of child labour and hopefully bring this harmful and degenerating act to a stop. But neither the ILO nor UNICEF can do much on their own about this form of child abuse said Isabella Okagbe, former director of research, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, “there was a need for government to enact regulation for the protection of those engaged as apprentices, especially in view of the prevalence of this type of employment in Nigeria.”
Indeed, with the growing number of child workers in most developing societies, calls like these, should be taken seriously. However, while some people believe that child labour should be treated like slavery, others saw it as primarily an abuse of social and economic human rights. And even though they are committed to the eradication of child labour, they are more immediately concerned with protecting the child at work rather than “liberating them into more difficult circumstances.”
