By Manuel Odeny (KENYA- Nyanza News), Promise Eze (NIGERIA- Freelance) , Helen Shok Jok (NIGERIA- Voice of Nigeria)), Jesus Okello Ojara (UGANDA- Daily Monitor)
More children in rural Nigeria are exposed to child labour compared to their urban counterparts, a survey has revealed.
The National Child Labour Survey of 2022 in the country has 39.2 per cent of Nigerian children or 24.7million are in child labour
Of the number children in rural Nigeria are 14.8 per cent more at 44.8 per cent of the number.
The results were released by the International Labour Organisation.
ILO through 187 member states is a United Nations body devoted to promoting social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights.
ILO is currently running the ACCEL Africa Project with the main goal to accelerate the elimination of child labour in Africa, through targeted actions in the cocoa, cotton, coffee, tea and gold supply chains.
The survey found out of Nigerian children in child labour, 22.9 per cent are in hazardous work with children from rural areas accounting for 26.8 per cent compared to 16.3 per cent of their urban counterparts.
The high number in rural areas has been attributed to more children, 30.2 percent of the survey, being out of school compared to only 9.3 per cent in urban areas.
This means more than half of Nigerian children aged between 5-14 years in Nigeria rural area, 52.1 per cent are exposed to child labour as fulltime job or are alternating them with school work.
This is the age where children are in primary and secondary schools.
This shows a high school drop out among rural Nigeria children who don’t proceed to senior secondary school because between the age of 15.17 years, 36.6 per cent of the number are completely out of school compared to 20 per cent in urban areas.
The survey has listed family dynamics like education level of parents, size, income as key reasons to push children to labour.
Proximity to learning institutions has been listed as among other factors.
(THE ARTICLE WAS PRODUCED AS PART OF ILO AFRICA JOURNALISTS TRAINING IN ENTEBBE, UGANDA)
