ABSTRACT
An increase in the number of children hawkers in Nigeria has become worrisome with selected respondents in a densely populated area of Ogun State, this paper investigating problem of street hawking among the Nigeria children, Odeda local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria, was purposely sampled and the respondents who participated in the study were conveniently sampled from the study area ,simple percentage and frequency count were the method of data analysis employed in this study. This study discovered that the level of awareness of the dangers inherent in the child hawking among the affected children was low. The investigation of the study revealed that parents’ levels of education parents’ Occupations and the sizes of the family were significantly related to the problem of child hawkers in the study area. The study recommended intensified enlightenment programmes on the problem of child hawkers, positive and genuine commitment by government, mass, free and compulsory education, and a serious fight against poverty through poverty alleviation and eradication programmes by the government. The implication of doing these were discussed.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Hawking has been defined as “the offer for sale, by going from house to house or street to street”. It is a system of trading where by the trader carried his wares about. Aiyelwo, (1999) street hawking is the process whereby the hawker hawks his goods by carrying the goods on his or her head by means of a tray or minor forms of transportation like wheel barrows, bicycles, trolleys etc. In search of customers in the process of which he could employ the use of bells or shout the name of the item he or she is hawking in order to attract the attention of any interested customers. Danesty and Okediran (2003) lamented that street hawking among young school students have psychologically imposed other problems like sex networking behaviour, juvenile delinquent behaviour which takes most of the students school time and leads to poor academic performance and drop out syndrome noticed among young school student. Street hawking especially by children constitute a social problem. It exposes the hawker to road accident, excretion, thirst and hunger since he move from place to place.
The street hawker comes into contract with all sorts of people including those with ignoble intentions. Children who engage in hawking often do not attend school and when they do, they may not concentrate on their studies due to distractions their attention is often drawn to opportunities of earning money thereby not talking their studies seriously. Street children engaged in work or employment on a regular basis with the aim of earning a livelihood for themselves or for their families. Such activities are often carried out at the expense of schooling. Therefore, children are not adequately prepared for the future in a modernized society, (UNICEF 2004; FME 2004) Ofordile (2006) observed that early exposure of the child to search and desire for money will not doubt make the juvenile to a acquire dishonest behaviours. According to him, not all children render the correct account of what they sold. Instead, some amounts are kept off or buying groundnut, Ice cream and so on, the next day. He added that is most likely that when such money cases to come, the child may already start learning to steal small amount of money from home to maintain his or her acquired lifestyle. Vinolia and Fubara (2002) described street hawking as an aspect of child abuse and neglect. They argued that certain economic and socio-psychological factors induce street hawking which they added have damaging affects on the developmental processes of children although they did not indicate whether the practice is associated with psychopathology. Other studies showed that hawking exposes children to sexual abuse and as such, the trade could be classified as a high risk behaviour in the content of human immune virus (HIV) infection and spread. Ebigbo and Abaga (2004) interview hundred hawkers and non hawkers in aged between eight and fifteen. They discovered that five percentage of the hawker as against nine percentage of the non hawkers have had sexual intercourse (sexually abused) out of this number sixty- seven, only seven reported the event either to the parent or guardians and only one was reported to the police although it did not lead to an arrest because the assailant escaped before police arrived. Half of them would either be raped or enticed to sexual intercourse and virtually of them would be sexually molested through the touching , optical and verbal enticement to sexual stimulation.
Olatawura and Odejide (2003) on the actiology of psychopathology as reflecting the operation of the unconscious anxieties, tension, repression and other defensive manoeuvres which have persisted from early childhood. Nzewi (2004) observed that on the actiology of psychological disorders in children have implicated persistent absence of father, separation of parent, material and emotional deprivation. Street hawking predisposes individual to adverse group influences. Social psychological researchers have shown that people influence one another and this influence is more fundamental during earlier formative years. This people especially children who engage in hawking are likely to exchange experiences for example a male hawker who has learnt to correct some harm with the packaging of the edible wares he carried as a way of dealing with hunger. While on the street may teach the same to his colleagues, a female counterpart who “gained” small amount of money in exchange for sexual exploitation may expose other girl hawkers to the risk behaviour. These adverse influences have for implications for these hawkers. This studies indicate that most children who hawk are motivated by poverty. Either that the parents do not earn enough money or that they have a lot of children to take care of. This often result in sending these children to the street to supplement family income or giving them out in marriage too early or as house helps.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ·
Firstly, poverty can lead this child to hawking · Secondly, lack of parental care can lead this children to hawking · Thirdly, lack of sponsorship can lead this children to hawking · Fourthly, child hawking exposes the child to a lot of hazards like sexual defilement, sexual assaults, neglects and threat of punishment for speaking out as exemplified above. The consequences of these acts usually result in an unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, psychological problems and a gradual withdrawal from a healthy relationship with the opposite gender (UNICEF, 2000).
