STREET HAWKING AS A RESULT OF ECONOMIC HARDSHIP.

Hawking according to the Oxford advanced learner dictionary, 6 th edition, means moving to sell things by going from place to place asking people to buy them.

However, one can identify two main types of hawkers which are; the hawkers that carry goods in the wheels or on their heads, and the side walkers who sit with their ware besides the road.

Street hawking in the Urban metropolis of Nigeria is part of everyday life. Children, mostly boys and girls aged between seven and above, are involved in the practice, oftentimes chasing moving vehicles in traffic on highways.

While adult men rarely carry trays on their head, they usually settle for newspaper vendors, deal on sports articles, and fashion wears.

Most women are full-time hawkers selling all sorts of fruits and food under the sun and sometimes in the rain, on the street corners, on bridges and along junctions.

There is no reason for such business is purely economic hardship. However, many are of the view that they constitute a nuisance to the society. Because it is both an economic and environmental issue, it calls for reflection on how to solve the problem.

It is illegal for children to hawk wares on the street in developed countries but In majority of developing countries like Nigeria, street hawking has become a culture and most of these street vendors are children.

Unemployment and poverty level is so high so in a bid to make ends meet parents and guardians send their children and wards to hawk so as to supplement the family income for their upkeep, the number of children hawking on the streets are increasing everyday in developing countries due to poverty, there might be little economic benefit for this but it also exposes these children to dangers of all sorts.

There is what seems as a general consensus that street hawking is a result of economic hardship. However, within this reason, some other contributory factors abound; such as –

        1. Rural-Urban Migration.

In most of our developed cities and state capitals in Nigeria, street hawking is on increase as a result of some people trooping out from the interior part to urban areas. When these desperate people come out and eventually have nothing doing.

The next available work is to go into street hawking, however, I am of the opinion that we can survive even within the so-called interior places by seeking alternative handwork instead of exposing oneself to the hazardous nature of street hawking.

                    2. Child labour.

In this sense, child labour is considered as the situation when one uses any child as a means of getting money by using that child as a street hawker. Hence, most traders are not sent by their biological parents, as some of them have been sent away from their families to faraway climes as hired help.

Sometimes, they are taken away by a relation on the pretext of helping them out but end up in the streets selling one thing or the other. Some people use the same pretext of helping poor families take these children and traffic them to other cities.

But the reverse is always the case when such child is mandated by her guardian to be hawking wares along the street. Such as child oftentimes never got admitted into any school. Statistics have it that greater number of children hawking along our streets are victims of this kind of condition.

              4. Unemployment.

Among those hawking along metropolitan streets in Nigeria are graduates who have nothing doing. They are not employed neither are they employable.

It is very disheartening that most of our graduates are wallowing about without having anything doing, the reason being that the labour market is not ready to employ them; thus resorting to street hawking to earn their living.
Sometimes some graduates’ do have jobs but continue trading to keep body and soul together.

They are seen in busy areas where the traffic does not speed too fast, hawking electronics, electrical appliances, handsets, bread, bottled drinks, plantain chips, towels and other items.

                        5. Poverty.

Nigeria is indeed one of the richest countries in the whole world in terms of natural endowments, but the fact remains that the citizens are poor virtually in all aspect. It is in this mind of poverty that some people resort to selling many items along the street.

They endanger themselves all in the name of survival.
Many people hold the opinion that hawking is a dangerous venture but instead of staying ideal; they better engage themselves in hawking items.

There is nothing like education, developed countries make policies that provide free education for children, but here in Nigeria though with much resources and wealth, education is left for the rich.

Poor folks prefer to send their children to the street to hawk with all the inherent dangers associated with it.

Street hawking that was once taken for granted is now accepted as part of life in Nigeria while the dangers of street trading is becoming an issue only to a couple of people who feel that government should have taken a better step to address this ugly phenomenon.

In this background, I strongly believe that if the government should provide free education or at best make school fees affordable to poor people; many of our children will be in school and thereby reduce this high rate of street hawking.

Nevertheless, as a way of curtailing the issue of child labour in street hawking, the government should sign the child rights bill so that the authority will start enforcing the child right act that was passed by the National Assembly.

If such should be done, it will help to prosecute the offenders and those masters, mistresses or whomever that will be using children as street hawkers.
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