Increase In Child Hawking

HNMC/18/018
Odinankaru Pepertua Chisara
HND2 Full Time

The high rate of poverty today in Nigeria due to bad economy has pushed so many innocent children into hawking on the street to enable them succeed in life.
Child street hawking is common sight on streets in Nigeria’s cities. Children sell products such as boiled groundnut, fruit and chips that they carry on trays balanced on their heads.

Street hawking has huge implications for children’s physical and emotional wellbeing. It exposes them to dangers such as sexual abuse, physical exhaustion, vehicle accidents, death and malnourishment and drug and substance abuse.

Children can become street hawkers in so many ways such as those been trafficked from the rural areas to the urban areas, through their parents, who send them to the street to hawk to supplement their family income, and those children who lost their parents either to disease or terrorist activity. They live on the street and hawk for survival.

What is the solution
Despite the emotional trauma and physical dangers these vulnerable children face, little is being done to protect them or to discourage such practices. Poverty alleviation, health education and protective child rights policies would decrease the prevalence of child street hawking.
The parents of children who street hawk should be empowered economically to be able to take care of them. But the government should also create awareness about child trafficking and provide affected children with support.
Constantly denying children their right to be protected and cared for has an impact on their effective development and well-being and is an injustice. A concerted effort should be made to implement the UN convention and the provisions of the Child Rights Act.
More importantly, the government must understand the psychological impact of this trade. It must tailor interventions to meet the needs of these children and to reduce the practice.