CHILD LABOUR

Abstract

It is common knowledge that child abuse and neglect are major societal problems in most parts of the world; but there are cross-cultural differences in what constitute child abuse and neglect. In many advanced countries, the phenomena have, over the past two or three decades, evoked a lot of official and public concern and attention. In Nigeria, interest in this problem is relatively recent and has been championed mainly by academics working in the fields of social sciences and non-governmental organizations. The need to further create awareness of this societal problem prevalent in most of the big cities in Nigeria has prompted and motivated this study. The need to provide research material on the prevalance of child abuse and neglect is secondary. The focus of the study is on child labour being an aspect of child abuse and neglect. The two variants of child labour focused on are 'child street hawking, and 'child street begging'.