Slavery in the Name of Child Labour

[Richard Akindele]

When slave trade was abolished, not every one complied immediately to the pronouncement. Some slave masters continued secretly. As years went by slave trade was noticed to have disappeared to a considerable extent. Some say completely while to some others the trade in slave still thrives. Africa, especially Nigeria still practices slave trade and slavery even though not in the open. Modern language uses Child traffic and child labour as if referring to new phenomenon. What difference is there between today's child trafficking and slave trade and between child labour and slavery? These are just names adopted to denote some forms of the old evil of slavery it is a matter of semantic, so to speak, as the ills perpetrated are exactly are the same. These new forms of slavery, one could refer to them as such, are like the old, both local and international.

Child trafficking in Nigeria is practised mostly around the southern part of Nigeria. The children who are victim of this are mainly enticed by promises of a better life. Unfortunately for them they end up in servitude in destinations far from home. The practise of taking children from their parents by well-to-do persons in other to better their lives was a benevolent practice which has been completely manipulated and successfully hijacked by modern day traffickers who have constituted themselves into a very powerful and deadly mafia.

Poverty and deprivation which were the reasons for the practices are how ever now being played upon by these traffickers who have totally defeated the purpose for which the children were released.

The traffickers have their agent every where, they have also perfected their act to deceive innocent children and their parents in some cases that they were into legitimate trade. In other cases parents knowingly hand over their own children to these traffickers in exchange for money to make it look legitimate, child traffickers are made to pay a token as registration fee with parent before the children are smuggled into a waiting truck positioned usually at the outskirt of the village or town children have been taken. These trucks move at night under the shadow of darkness so that children whose parent would not give them up to the traffickers could easily sneak into the waiting truck and also to make sure that all children would not be able to trace the way from where they were being taken or understand their bearing. These children who happily left home expecting to experience better life eventually find them selves in labour camps or doing other dehumanizing jobs not very different from the kind of jobs imposed on slaves long ago. Such oldd jobs like prostitution and drug trafficking are imposed mainly on those children taken beyond the shores of the country.

Child labour on the other hand even though synonymous with slavery is one of those concepts a different name. People have hidden under concept as 'hard working child', 'responsible child' 'promising child', etc. These were used to colour the real connotation of the concept 'child labour'. However, amount of such unpretentious coloration would suffice.

Often it is only when we see children working in factories or other established labour camps that we remember child labour. Child labour is not limited to factory and sales of wares only. It extends to instances of children being used as house helps, baby sitters, bus conductors, street hawkers, etc. Such children are given out in return for daily, monthly or annual monetary returns for the family. The children in these categories are often asked to perform duties that are otherwise meant for adults. Most of the times they can not combine such work with their education, thus they either quite school or attend school as part time engagement. These forms of servitude are common in most African countries especially Nigeria.

In Nigeria as in many African countries, it is culturally mandatory for children to watch and assist their parents at work. As they grow up they are engage in various works according to age and demand of culture.

Child trafficking and child labour have a number of effects on the children involved. They are hazardous to the mental health of the child they carry responsibility for which they are not prepared. They are made to work for long hours, sometimes they work at night.

The most disheartening part of it is the fact that these young girls and boys are deprived of education, some of them are taken away from school unduly, others are sneaked away from their families. All this go along way to depleting the generation of people that will become tomorrow's leaders, these children are no doubt gifted and pronouncing individual which if given the opportunity can make a tremendous achievement in life. As long as the ill3 of child labour and child trafficking continues in Nigeria other countries would see us as people who do not value education but more interested in exploiting the youthfulness and God given gifts of our children, within and outside the countries for in monetary benefit. s

If these ill of child trafficking and child labour must be tackled once and for all, every body must be involved in the fight against them at local, national and international level. Government, political associations NGOs community based group's religious bodies and the media should combat this evil. In an effort to eradicate these menace, The wife of the Vice President Mrs. Titi Abubakar has established a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) called "Trafficking and child labour eradication foundation (WOTCEF) all effort must also be made towards enlightenments campaigns and human development government at the local, state and federal level should ensure that they effectively use available resources to give citizens free education at least, up to secondary school level. Because education drives ignorance and a well knowledgeable mind cannot be easily exploited. In a bid to counter this act, effort must also be made to create job opportunities for our youths. It is quite unfortunate that some people in authorities are busy lavishing scarce resources while there are graduates without jobs.

The future is uncertain. Do we fold our arms and see this bunch of talented young stars perish without care? Who knows whether they are mouthing a quick prayer of repentance within them expecting a caressing hand and here are most of us contributing to the tarnishing of their reputation. Let us wake up from our slumber "to be fore warned is to be fore armed" or time will come when the well-fed will not be able to sleep because the hungry are awak

Henry Amanoghor Ebalu is with the University of Maiduguri, Department of Mass communication

This Day.