Street hawking: oppressing the girl child or family economic supplement?

Street hawking: oppressing the girl child or family economic supplement? Street hawking in its simplest form is the selling of things alongthe roads and from one place to the other. In Nigeria this is donealmost all the time by young children both males and females. The girlhawkers come to the cities in groups and then go in different directionsof the city to hawk their goods. They remain in the city from the earlymorning to late in the evening when they take buses back to theirrespective villages after the days sales. This article describes thedangers and problems associated with street hawking. A World View of the Situation of the Girl-Child There are sixty-five (65) million girls around the world that arenot going to school, and more will only complete a few years ofschooling. Majority of them are engaged in the world's third mostprofitable trade Girl trafficking (after arms and drugs) for variousreasons. Some of them are trafficked for the purpose of prostitution,some for child labour (Umar, 2003). For example, between 5,000 and 7,000Nepalese girls are trafficked every year across the boarders to India.Most end up as sex hawkers in brothels in Bombay and New Delhi. Anestimated 200,000 Nepalese women, most of them girls under 18 are sexhawkers in Indian cities. Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe) aretrafficked as sex workers. These girls are in most cases powerless,isolated and at great risk of violence and infections. A recent UNICEFsurvey of household in 25 sub-Saharan African countries indicated thatthirty-one percent (31%) of children aged between five (5) and four (4)are engaged in the various forms of child labour such as slavery,trafficking and forced recruitment for armed conflicts, prostitution andphonography and other hazardous works that stretch to 43 hours a week inlabour that threaten the young girls being. In another UNICEF study, 246 million children are found to beengaged in child labour. In essence, 1 in every 6 children around theworld is forced into child labour. The figure is broken down as follows:Years Percentage5-14 years old 49% of girls14-18 years 42% of girl Ninety percent of the large numbers of children are beingtrafficked in west and central Africa for domestic work and sexualexploitation, to work in shops or farms, or to be employed as streethawkers. In Latin America, child servants are hired to work as domesticservants and also to satisfy the sexual needs of the employer's ortheir sons. In Peru, another study showed that 60% of men who grew upwith a female domestic servant had their first sexual experience withthat servant. Undoubtedly, this situation is the same in Nigeria. We have hadloud outcries for the elimination of child trafficking and abuse bygovernments, non-governmental organisations and individuals. But it is afar cry as it is, an immediate cry that should have been of immediateconcern to us is the incessant problem of street hawking by very younggirls (more often than not under-aged). The Girl Child Now we explore the world of the Girl-Child. Who is she? The GiftChild is normally a young lady in her adolescence. The adolescent age isgenerally regarded as the most turbulent of human development because itis characterized by physiological and psychological changes. During thisperiod, the Gift Child is often in a dilemma of how to meet societalexpectations. Because of the transitional nature of the period fromchildhood to adulthood, the girl child is sometimes rebuked for behavinglike child, and at other times chided for behaving like adults (Umar,2003). Akinboye sees adolescence as a period of accelerated growth. Thisperiod is heightened by social awareness, and a period when theyoungster reaches a maturational stage of primary and secondary sexdevelopment that enables her to reproduce her kind. This is a period ofstorm and stress. It is a period of high emotionality. The Gift Childtends to be irritable, gets excited easily and explores more easily thanadults. The results of this study has shown that in this part of thecountry, adolescent boys and gifts have to choose and begin to train foradult occupations. They have to prepare themselves for marriage andadulthood. They have to come to terms with themselves as men and womenand separate themselves from their families to assume adultresponsibilities IN the event of marriage. The Girl Child needs to knowabout her significance to others and that others believe in her, and arewilling to help her meet her responsibilities. She needs security. Shehas to establish her identity; she has to decide what kind of roles sheshould play in the adult world, socially and sexually. At this period,the Gift Child has intensity of desire to be independent and autonomous,at the same time struggling for independence from such significantothers like parents and teachers. Significant Life Values Attitudes are learnt from one's environment through experienceand or imitation of significant adults. Attitudes determine what theyoung girl sees and how she sees it. She adopts her life values directlyfrom parents, other adults and peers. Other ways through which attitudes and values are acquired arethrough the influence of movies, radio and other forms of communication.Umar 2000. Elsewhere, Raths, Harmin and Simon (1966) assert that noteverything is value. Values grow from our feelings, aspirations, goals,interests and beliefs and activities. Okon (1988) says values givedirection to one's life. At this period of her life, the girl childis struggling to establish her own significant life values. Some Needs of the Girl Child The Girl Child has a need for identity. She wants to know who sheis, and who she wants to become. She entertains doubts about herself.Accepting the Girl Child's faults will help her to relate well withimportant others, give her self-confidence and courage to face up to herproblems and solve them. This study was carded out between 2000 and 2004 in eight lowersocio economic status areas of Kano state. The study areas are; * Dawanau * Gidan Murtala * Kurmi market * Sabon Gad market * Kurmi. market * Kwad market * Kwanar goda market * Kwanar Gabad. market The study had 500 street hawking girls as sample aged between 8 and18, all from the following areas : * Dawanau * Dorayi * Gano * Gora * Kumbotso * Madobi * Rogo * Taburawa * Panshekara Goods the gift child hawks * Ground nut oil * Cooked and raw foods, * Vegetables * Local crafts products * Local drinks * Jewelries The gift hawkers come to the cities in groups and then go indifferent directions of the city to hawk their goods. They remain in thecity from the early morning to late in the evening when they take busesback to their respective villages after the days sales. Street Hawking Hawking in its simplest form is the selling of things along theroads and from one place to the other. In Nigeria this is done almostall the time by young children both males and females. The streethawkers usually display their wares on the roads for motorists'attention. Selling and buying is done while vehicles are in motion, orwaiting to be released by traffic lights or warders. This category ofhawking is done by mostly adolescent boys. But in other parts ofNigeria, it is normal to find gifts also engaging in roadside hawking. The other type of hawking is mostly done by the Girl-Child. This isa situation where gifts go round wards from place to place, markets andbuilding sites advertising and selling their goods. The goods are mostlyfood items, but also includes such items as jewelry and petty clothing.The ages of these girls range from eight (8) to sixteen (16). The GiftChild faces varied forms of dangers hawking her wares. Hawking is doneirrespective of the climate or weather or even time of the day (Umar,2003). This means that the gift child street hawker does not attendschool, Islamic or western. The results of this study are discussedbelow. Having discussed the characteristics of adolescence, which is thedevelopmental period of the Gift Child, explored her world, significantlife values and needs, we now go on to deliberate on the reasons forGift Child hawking as revealed by this study. Reasons Why the Girl Child Hawks In a recent UNICEF (2004) study, a nongovernmental organisation,the Home Front IN LAGOS, asked the gift-children why they hawk on thestreets, to which they lamented that they hawk to get money to feed andtake care of other basic needs of their families. That whenever theyreturn home without a profit, they get bitten and are denied food. However findings of this study has revealed that the Girl Childrenthat are especially from the rural areas where chances for enrollmentinto western schools are very limited for several reasons are sent intocities to street hawk for such reasons as: saving money for marriage, * sourcing money to supplement family income * stark ignorance of the need to pursue skill development andcommerce for boys and girls * illiteracy in both Islamic and western education. However, interview results for this study has shown that whateverthe reason for girl child street hawking, the underlining factor ispoverty. Families who are not economically stable tend to send the GirlChild outside the home to supplement the family's earnings by wayof hawking. By implication found by this study, there is neglect of familyresponsibilities by bread winners, fathers, to provide for the family. Where a husband leaves his family without adequate basicnecessities of life, the woman of the house has to find an alternativeway to provide. Hawking is what readily comes to mind in suchcircumstances. Also revealed by this study, where there is a loss of the familyhead and there isn't enough left behind to take care of the family,the orphaned Girl-Child takes over the responsibility of bread wining inthe family by street hawking. This is in the absence of any relation toassist the family financially. From the findings so far, it is clear that the main reasons why theGirl Child goes hawking are both a combination of economic andpsychological deprivation. Anthropologist Pamela Keynolds who has workedwith children in African and elsewhere, is in agreement with thisstatements where she asserts that "it is safe to say that fewchildren would choose to live or work on the streets if they were givensecurity, protection, sufficient food and clothing, a supportive set ofcaring people, access to safe good schools and time to play"(Swart, 1990). So what are the dangers of street hawking on the girlchild? Dangers of Street Hawking by the Girl Child The finding of this study has revealed the many dangers of streethawking as follows; The Girl Child faces multiple dangers whenever shegoes outside her home to hawk. * First and foremost, the young girl is open to sexual abuse inform of rape, harassment and molestation in the course of which she mostprobably looses her dignity to shameless men who take advantage of her. * As if that is not enough, such a Girl Child, now becomes streetwise and most often goes after men with outrageous passion intocommercial sex, thereby learning anti social and criminal behaviour. Themen of-cause compensates the young girl generously for such services andthat way hawking is only a front. * The young girl hawker forfeits education, western or Islamic forhawking. She looses the opportunity to attend schools and therebyloosing all the benefits of education. Not surprising that she grows upinto an ignorant, raw and barbaric young lady in principles andattitudes. * The girl child learns many societal vices on the streets and isexposed to deviant behaviour while street hawking which turns her intojuvenile delinquent at a very early age. * Street hawking also exposes the Girl Child to dangers posed byfraudsters and ritual murderers because of her vulnerability and oddhawking hours. She falls easily into personal jeopardy, hash andhazardous conditions such as becoming an easy target to occult predators(ritual killers). * Because of the dangerous life street hawking poses to the GirlChild, she is susceptible to the deadly diseases of HIV--AIDS and orlesser dangerous sexually transmitted diseases through coercive sex. The above findings have shown that the girl child street hawker wasadjudged to manifest inadequate moral development and was deficient inproblem solving situations. Self esteem is believed to be important inthe ability of children to relate to their environment. The self esteemof the girl child was indirectly assessed by a question that requestedthem to state whether they were as fortunate, less fortunate or morefortunate than their peers. 82% of the sample considered themselves lessfortunate than their peers who do not street hawk. The girl child streethawker seemed to have low self esteem than her non street hawking peer. Recommendations First and foremost, the parents should be reoriented towardsaccepting their responsibilities in terms of taking care of theirfamilies. Children are great unquantifiable gifts. They should beadequately nurtured, loved and cared for. The Gift Child is vulnerableand so should be treated as such. When parents accept theirresponsibilities of taking care of their children there would be no needfor the Gift Child to hawk. The mother herself who forces the daughterto hawk would have no reason to. Secondly, there should be a planned literacy/vocational programmein which the Gift-Child hawker would be afforded the opportunity toattain some literacy level and at the same time acquire some vocationalskills. Adeliberate policy that would focus on female literacy andskills acquisition would go a long way in compensating the family of theGift Child hawker. This would have to be done through intensivesensitization and mobilization of the public towards activeparticipation, by the use of communication networks, traditional rulersand women organisations. Some states have been able to do this with thehelp of some non-governmental organisations and it has proved verysuccessful. There used to be a Gift Child education programme in this state, inwhich the Gift-Child hawker attended primary schools alongside otherschool children and hawked her wares during break periods. She is alsotaught some trade that would eventually take the place of hawking. Butbecause effort has not been sustained the program has died down. Thiscould be revived and improved upon to restrain the girl-children hawkersfrom roaming the streets amidst all the dangers therein. There was another programme for the Girl Child hawker in Jos,planned and implemented by a non-governmental organisation. The programwas a participatory project that used the theater as an avenue togenerate new paths for street children to develop critical awarenessabout problems in their daily lives as well as possible solutions totheir problems. The shade tree project was able to help the childrenidentify their problems analyze their causes and consequences, exploreand rehearse solutions and evaluate change (Salami 2002). There areother programs and proposed projects but time will not allow for a fulldiscussion on them here. Another very important and feasible way to help the young girlhawker is to train her in some basic trades. Vocational education andtraining are aimed at earning a living and empowerment forself-reliance. This is a good substitute for hawking. This form ofnon-formal education is particularly favoured as an income-generatingprogram. It comes in form of small-scale projects aimed at training theGirl-Child to be self-employed which will blend very well with hereventual married life. This paper further recommends that parents provide for theiradolescent gifts basic needs, which includes food, shelter, clothing andsuch things that will help the Girl Child grow into a physically andemotionally healthy adult. The positive fulfillment of basic needs is abasis for pro-social behaviour and growth of cohesive families andcommunities. Because street hawking by the Girl Child only recently gainedrecognition in Nigeria (UNICEF 1995: 2000) our National Agenda haslittle or nothing to offer them. Street hawking may be controlled over aperiod of time if the above socio economic measures are put in place bythe use of local resources of community based organisations cooperativeassociations and traditional authorities. Conclusion Children are sources of joy and happiness to their parents andfamilies as invaluable assets. The Gift Child should not be abused,maltreated, exploited, over-worked or deprived of her rights toeducation and health. She should not be deprived of her rights to normaland happy childhood. All stakeholders, that is the authorities, parentsand the entire community should be sensitized to realize that hawking bythe Gift Child is unnecessary. If governments, corporate organisations,multinational and local companies including banks could offermicro-lending facilities to families of girl children and also expandthe Nigerian Poverty Alleviation programme to reach all the nooks andcomers of the country all in an effort to empower them, the Girl childwould not be exposed to the menace of street hawking and so would not beher family bread winner prematurely. References Annan, K. (2001). We, the Children. New York: UNICEF Boal, A. (2001). The Theater of the Oppressed. New York: UrizenBooks. Ebigho, P. O. (1988). Child Abuse and Neglect. ANPPCAN AdvocacySeries. Enugu: Chukka Printing. Ebigho, P. O. (1996). Street Children: The Core of Child Abuse andNeglect in Nigeria. African Insight. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)(2001). Special Issue: Children Participation, Evaluating Effectiveness.PLA Publications. UNICEF (1995). State of the World's Children. New York:UNICEF. Umar, F. M. (2002). 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