Maria Charity Agbo
Child Labour is an evil that destroys the health, development and education of many Nigerian children. The health and educational consequences of child labour in Nigeria cannot be overestimated; children from 5-17 years old are economically and physically lured or even forced into performing certain tasks that are likely to harm and interfere with their health and education. This research work investigated the health and educational consequences of child labour in Nigeria using descriptive survey. To achieve this, two research questions guided the study. The population of the study was the entire child labourers in Nigeria. Staged stratified sampling technique was used to select 1,800 child labourers from 6 states of the federation. Data were collected, using structured questionnaire, and in-depth interview. The data collected were analyzed using simple percentage and frequency. The findings revealed that child labourers in Nigeria engaged in all sorts of child labour such as hawking, begging, carry heavy loads and experience a lot of health and educational problems ranging from injuries, pains of some sort, traffic accidents, chemical poisoning, pneumonia, craw-craw difficulty in breathing, which have other serious health implications. The findings also identified poverty, greed, broken family and others as some of the causes of child labour in Nigeria. It was also revealed that children’s education suffer a lot as they do not receive sound education. Recommendations were made to curb this cankerworm in the society.
