Many children \u2013 especially those living in internally displaced persons\u2019 camps and in host communities in Maiduguri \u2013 have to work for their living.<\/p>\n
It is not necessarily forced labour. In many cases, it is the only way for them to survive \u2212 and most often the money they make is used to help their indigent families.<\/p>\n
Poverty is rife. Most of the people living in internally displaced persons\u2019 camps and host communities, had to flee from their homes in villages and towns because of the ever-increasing number of attacks by extremists, such as the Jam\u0101\u2019at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da\u2019way Wa\u2019l-Jih\u0101d (JAS), commonly known as Boko Haram, and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).<\/em><\/p>\n A United Nations International Children\u2019 Emergency Fund (UNICEF) report said that across Nigeria there were millions of children under the age of 14 who were forced to work.<\/p>\n It said the money earned by child family members had become a significant part of poor families\u2019 income.<\/p>\n The report said children worked in public places, such as streets and markets, as street vendors, beggars, shoe shiners, car washers and watchers, scavengers and feet washers.<\/p>\n In semi-public settings, such as cottage industries and mechanic workshops, they worked as apprentice mechanics, vulcanisers, bus conductors, iron \/ metal workers, carpenters, tailors \/ weavers, hairdressers \/ barbers and caterers.<\/p>\n In private households, they were mostly domestic servants.<\/p>\n In agricultural plantations and quarries, they were farm and quarry workers.<\/p>\n One of the most devastating aspects of child labour was that millions were losing out on education, the report said.<\/p>\n \u201cMissing out on education makes it impossible to break the cycle of poverty and exploitation and prevents children from having a better life and a safer future.\u201d<\/p>\n Another report said that, in northeastern Nigeria especially, many children were sent out by their families to earn some money through street hawking, begging and, in some cases, even prostitution.<\/p>\n Babagana Mustapha, a 13-year-old shoe repairer who lives in Kawar Maila, an internally displaced persons\u2019 camp in Maiduguri, said he had learnt the trade and now worked to help his parents and grandmother. He kept any money that might be left over in a bank to try to save for the future.<\/p>\n Muktar Abubakar a 12-year-old street vendor, also from Kawar Maila, said he worked to help his family.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I am also trying to save money so that I can make enough to enrol in school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A10-year-old boy who lives in London Ciki in Maiduguri, said he was the only male child in his family and he had started working to ease his family\u2019s suffering. He worked as a vendor, selling fresh peppers and tomatoes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many children \u2013 especially those living in internally displaced persons\u2019 camps and in host communities in Maiduguri \u2013 have to work for their living. It is not necessarily forced labour. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":14885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanitarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}