Growing up in Northern Nigeria comes with various thrills and peculiarities one can never help but relish. From amazing cuisines, festivals, perfumery, art, and culture to an unmatched sense of hospitality, trade, and integrity. The region echoes history, power, and warmth which I feel like no one pauses to appreciate in full.
Yet, amidst these perks lies a problem old as time and ugly as sin — child hawking. My heart is forced to sink any time I set my eyes on the nerve-racking sight of little kids who are supposed to be in the classrooms learning to become future leaders, or at home under the tender care and protection of their parents walking on the roads, with heavy trays on their heads, under the harshest weather conditions, hawking.
Sometimes I ask myself, why is the cumbersome responsibility of making a living placed on the frail shoulders of these babies? Why are children who are supposed to be catered for, protected, and educated out there hustling for the next meal? This is mostly predominant in marginalized households where the future of these children is already predetermined by their parents’ recklessness and society’s nonchalance to frown at child hawking.
Today in statistics, Northern Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children, especially in the North East at 53%. We will also discover that one major contributor to this factor is the absence of family planning among the affected population. They give birth to children in large numbers when their household incomes are nothing to write home about. These children suffer collateral damage because once they hit 6-7 years of age, they’re tossed out on the streets to hawk to contribute to the family’s survival. They are deprived of all rights to tenderness and education, exposed to all sorts of threats including rape and murder, and denied a future of their choosing. Sadly, this issue mostly affects girls because their education is considered useless since right after attaining puberty, they’re thrown over to the highest bidder in marriage. A most barbaric infringement on their freedom to protection from harmful practices and a clear presentation of gender inequality.
I remember a time in my second year in college when my friends and I were sauntering the roads after school hours as was our norm, we decided to stop by some peanut hawkers to buy some for ourselves. It was peanut season. The three girls with large trays of boiled peanuts on their heads were girls exactly our age, but what got me stupefied that day was how I recognized one of them who was my classmate and seatmate in primary school before we graduated and went to other schools for college education. I wondered what could have changed in less than two years to have me looking at my classmate in such different circumstances. I could have asked or tried to engage her in a chat away from our other friends but the coward in me chose avoidance instead. I had acted like I didn’t recognize her without even trying to avoid eye contact with her, and I thanked her for meeting that energy halfway by not showing recognition. No, I wasn’t giving her the cut direct. I wasn’t embarrassed to hug her and pronounce her as someone I knew. I just found the moment too awkward and uncomfortable for her and wouldn’t let any of my friends feel sympathy for her. I wasn’t sure she would appreciate that.
Even though I was just 13 at the time, that day I had gone home disoriented from mixed emotions. It was one of my first real-life eye-openers to the varying realities of life. I regretted not saying hi, and decided to scan around for her next time my friends and I walked that road again. But I never saw her again and never knew what became of her in the long run. The parallels were unsettling. We were two girls of the same age, in the same world, but with different privileges.
The piercing truth is that most of these underprivileged children, with time, and out of necessity, realize how futile it is to dream and eventually give up. Yet, beneath those gleeful and innocent faces are great minds and voices capable of changing the world if allowed to unleash. These children matter and so should their rights. If life failed them by making them among the impoverished population, society must not fail them by leaving them to their devices.
Inarguably, NGOs have put their shoulders to the wheel by aggressively addressing issues of gender disparity, cultural barriers, educational access, and healthcare access, especially to these vulnerable children but, it isn’t cutting the rampage and wide margin we see today. Governments need to step in and create more educational and learning facilities accessible for free to benefit these children from socially disadvantaged families. The government should also work intentionally with the private sector to expand job creation to limit the spread of unemployment and poverty. And lastly, a stringent ban should be placed on child hawking with effective monitoring. Let there be no child hawkers. Every child matters!
