Childhood encompasses a variety of meanings, ranging from the maturity period of a human, to the period of reliance on their parents by children.

However in this context childhood is the early stages of a human’s growth and development, of which they tend to depend solely on their parents or guardians for provision and care. This is one of the most vulnerable and crucial parts of a human's life and in future may likely determine how such an individual interacts with his family and the society at large.

An individual in this stage must be nurtured, fed, clothed, educated, protected, and even disciplined when necessary to instill a good and completely developed person, and anything in the contrary is detrimental to the overall development of such a child. This period can easily make or break an individual.

Now, imagine a world where a child is deprived of his/her innocence and rights, a world where they are uneducated, exploited, unprotected and not given the opportunity to build meaningful relationships. Now, stop imagining because that is the world we live in today. Children are being subjected to Child Labour  which exposes them to child abuse and trafficking, ill treatment, molestation, physical violence, psychological trauma, discrimination, sexual exploitation and abuse. 

Child labour is the employment of children under the age of 18 in a manner that restricts or prevents them from basic education and development. A typical example of Child Labour in Nigeria are the numerous number of children who are on the streets hawking or working when they should be in school. Children are also used as domestic servants for  menial jobs by wealthy people. 

In Jude’s case, it was a strive for daily bread at a tender age that caused more damage than offering a solution which the family desperately needed from a child. 

Unlike every other morning, Jude, a 13 year old boy, born into a struggling Nigerian family was chased out of the house by his mother to go and ‘hustle’ like his mate and fend for himself. In her words “You are a man now”.

Jude, with an empty stomach and no choice would go in search of any means possible to sustain himself. He would fetch water for people, hawk sachet water on the busy highways and occasionally wash cars on the road when there is traffic. He did all this to earn some money to feed. On some terrible days he goes without eating, and on lucky days he eats leftovers from a restaurant close to his house. 

On this fateful day, Jude dashed out of the house during the usual rants from his mother. After a very long walk, he came across a construction site where strong and bulky men lifted cements, concrete and other tools. He saw this as a chance to make some money since he knew laborers get paid daily. He begged to get this job and was excited at the prospect of earning N50 for every block he carried. He made some mental calculations and was quite delighted with the amount of money he would make at the end of the day should he stick to the number of cement blocks in his calculations. With so much excitement and a rush of adrenaline, Jude rushed to begin lifting up the blocks to the designated position without even paying attention to the environment nor the nature of the job. 

Maybe, if he was old enough he would have taken a moment to observe the job environment, he would have noticed that most of the men there were far older than him, heavily built and took drugs. Maybe if he was an adult, he would have made enquiries and would have realized that he was being exploited as others were being paid N200 per block and that the job wasn’t fit for a child of his age. Most importantly, if he was in school like his mates and not chased out of the house to find a job and provide for himself, he wouldn’t have been laying on a hospital bed with a broken leg. 

Jude, weak, hungry and doing a job meant for adults, fell off the stairs during his 10th trip carrying blocks. He now has a terrible fracture and is fighting for his life and his legs. Jude always dreamt of being an engineer and now he weeps that he may never get to see that dream become a reality. His mother is sitting by his bedside but is unable to speak a word. 

Jude is a young boy that is on the verge of losing everything to child labor and factual characterization of the pair and suffering of the children, who are losing their lives, their freedom and freewill, who are losing their education, the joy and smile to child labor. Children that have no reason to wake up the next day and nothing to look forward to. Children that will ask “Why is my case different” when they see their mates in school and they are laboring to survive. Child Labour has robbed many young children of their dreams, hope and even the decency of being treated as who they are….. Children.

Jude’s story is just one of the many stories of kids out there that are secretly waiting for an intervention and freedom from the vices of Child Labour. Let's create awareness about this and strive to take action in combating Child Labour. 

Asi Iso

Bassey Inameti

For Advocacy, Street Priests