How poor enforcement of extant laws sustains child labour as modern day slavery
20 April 2024 | 3:40 am
Although Section 20 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides that “no person shall be held in slavery or servitude and no person shall be required to perform forced labour,” the enforcement of the law seems to be lacking in recent times
Although Section 20 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides that “no person shall be held in slavery or servitude and no person shall be required to perform forced labour,” the enforcement of the law seems to be lacking in recent times with the growing number of underage Nigerians, especially girls, that are being forced to serve as house helps in many homes. The trend, which was noticed in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, was attested to by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which estimated there are up to 15 million workers aged under-14 in Nigeria in 2024, many of whom are house girls whose labour is often forced and unpaid or underpaid.
Meanwhile, the Child Rights Act, 2023, prohibits the engagement of children in any form of labour that not only interferes with their education but also deprives them of their childhood, access to leisure, potential and dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. The Act defines children as any persons under the age of 18; yet most of those serving as house helps in Lagos, who were interrogated by The Guardian, fall below this age.
So, who are those spearheading the contravention of these provisions of law? Investigations revealed that parents are the major culprits even as it was discovered that most underage persons serving as house helps in Lagos are from Benue, Oyo, Ebonyi and Plateau states.
Speaking with The Guardian, 15-year-old Aduni, (surname withheld), from a family of seven children, who hails from Saki Oke-Ogun in Oyo State, said her mother contracted an agent in Lagos who brought her to the home where she works as a house help while her monthly payment is made to the agent.
Narrating her story in Yoruba language, Aduni said: “About two years ago when I was 13 years old and still lived in Saki Oke-Ogun, my mother started complaining of having too many mouths to feed from her petty business where she sells food stuffs in the market; it was difficult for her to cope as my father is not working. He only went to the market with her sometimes and they were always fighting. One of her friends introduced her to an agent who comes to our town to pick girls and take them to different cities – Ibadan, Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, etc – to not only work as house help but also as food vendors. The woman said two of her young daughters, one of whom was even younger than me at the time, were already in Lagos as house helps and they were supposedly doing well. She told my mother that the agent pays yearly at the rate of N20, 000 per month. So, at the end of a year’s work, the agent would pay the sum of N240, 000 to her. My mother immediately reached out to the agent and asked her to come and take me and my elder sister. Both of us were taken at the same time to different places. My sister was taken to Abuja as house help to work for a family, while I was brought here, in Lagos, to also work for another family. However, about three months after my sister started working for the family in Abuja, she left the place without telling anyone. She was unreachable for about three months and when she eventually contacted my mother, she told her she was fine and was pregnant for the security guard at the house where she worked. So, the man who got her pregnant ensured that she left the house to go and live with his parents in Bayelsa State.”
Aduni continued: “Compared to what my sister had to go through especially with the early pregnancy and having to raise a child as a teenager for another poor man, I could say my situation is better. I have been working with this same family for two years now and it has not been easy as I practically work round the clock and endure constant battering and verbal harassment from my madam and her children. However, I am grateful that they feed me and pay the agent, who pays my mother the sum of N240, 000 as agreed on a yearly basis. However, I discovered that my madam actually pays the agent N40, 000 per month. I knew this because she never ceases to remind me of how she pays a ‘whopping’ sum of N40, 000 monthly for me to do my job well, so I have no reason to do otherwise. She tells me that ‘some graduates earn N40, 000 per month in this country, so why will a brat like you who never even had a primary school education earn so much and still do a poor job’. So, I relentlessly try my best to do what she wants at all times so she doesn’t send me away as my mother had warned me to behave myself and never dream of coming back home to her if I am sent away.”
On what the future holds for Aduni, who although has no form of formal education but displays vibrancy both in her communication and self-resolve, she said: “Sometimes I hang around the private teacher who comes to teach my madam’s children, and sometimes when the children are in a pleasant mood, they try to teach me how to speak English. This makes me want to go to school by all means possible. Right now I am not sure how that would happen, but I will go to school.
“I see all these children speak, read and write in English language and I really want to be like them. I don’t want to get pregnant like my sister; I want to go to school and be like my Madam’s first daughter who says she wants to be a medical doctor. I want to be a medical doctor too or maybe get into another profession; anything that can give me a better life where I can become my own woman, stop this house girl work, have my own house and provide for my family so that my younger siblings won’t have to be given out to do house help work.”
Another 15-year-old girl from Saki Oke-Ogun, Taiwo Igbekele, who hawks ‘amala’, said her biological parents were late and her uncle who was her guardian in Saki gave her to an agent who brought her to Lagos to hawk ‘amala’ for a woman. She revealed that there are about eight of them who currently hawk ‘amala’ for the woman.
“Five of us sleep in the shop where she prepares the ‘amala’ while the other three are married women who return home to their families after each day’s work. The other five of us are all from Saki and the oldest amongst us is 16 years old.
“Although quite tedious, I like the job because I get to eat. Back home it is difficult to tell where the next meal would come from; nobody was really responsible for anybody in the real sense. However, whenever I run a loss, my madam punishes me by not giving me food for days. She calculates the amount of loss I incurred and cuts down on my feeding until the missed meal price clears the loss. So, I only eat once a day instead of twice a day. Sometimes when she gets really upset, she makes sure I don’t eat the whole day and that can be tough. Having to hawk from place to place regardless of the weather condition without eating terrifies me so much,” she said.
On how she incurs loss, she explained: “Sometimes some people, mostly men, stop you to buy food. You dish the food in a takeaway plastic and they will collect and tell you to wait, point at a nearby house or shop and tell you they want to bring money from the place but before you know it they have disappeared. You go to where they pointed and the people there will say no one in such description lives or works there. I believe they take advantage of the fact that I am a small girl. Unfortunately, alongside the meats and fish, all the wraps of ‘amala’, ‘semo’, ‘fufu’ and ‘eba’ are counted by the madam I sell them for. So, as you set out to hawk the food, you already know what your total returns should be. Sometimes when this loss happens and my total money is not complete after selling for the day, I find myself crying on the road for my predicament and some good people will give me some money after explaining the situation to them. But this doesn’t happen all the time as they mostly advise me to go to my madam and explain myself. Perhaps when I grow up, I can have my own ‘amala’ restaurant and have girls and women sell for me too. However, I know that won’t happen if my uncle keeps collecting my monthly salary. So, I am going to eventually leave this current place of work to find the same work elsewhere on my own where I would be paid my money directly. This way, I can save and start something on my own when I have enough to do so.”
For 16-year-old Faith (surname withheld), who hails from Benue State, her mother’s sister actually works as a house help agent and her mother had advised her to attempt working as a house help in Lagos through her aunt’s agency.
“My mother said that because the agent is my aunt I would have better opportunities than outsiders to work in a rich family house and make more money. However, when she brought me to Lagos, she took me to a house where I only worked for six months and had to leave the place because the family maltreated me. Even though my mum and aunt decided that I get N10, 000 per month as I requested, while my aunt pays the balance of N20, 000 on a monthly basis into my mother’s account, I was constantly harassed by members of the family I worked for, and due to my kind of personality, I literally fought with the madam who did not hesitate to beat me up and throw my things out on a fateful night. I had to call my aunt who came to pick me up so late. After that, she got me into another family but unfortunately I didn’t like that family because they only lived in a room and parlour apartment and they were literally struggling to make ends meet. However, the madam had two children and needed someone to take care of them while she worked. It wasn’t what I signed up for; I wanted to live in a luxury house. However, I made friends in this second place and decided to stay put since the madam was paying the same N30, 000 as the previous one. She even seemed more desperate to keep me as she needed someone to help take care of her children. So, she gives me extra money on a daily basis; she also bought me a phone but started restricting me from making friends. Eventually, we had a misunderstanding and she also asked me to leave. After that, I returned to Benue, started learning how to make hair and about six months later, a guy came to ask for my hand in marriage and I got married to him.”
Explaining why she opted for marriage, Faith said her parents couldn’t afford to pay for her education. “Although I never liked the idea of being anyone’s house help especially as I have zero tolerance for being tossed about even as a young girl, a lot of my friends in Benue were out to work as house helps and we kept hearing stories of them doing well. However, when I got into the same deal, I realised the stories of their doing well were just made believe and a ploy by the agents, who also hail from Benue State, to get more girls into the house girl job. At that point I decided to just get married since that was the only window to move forward.”
On her part, 15-year-old Joy Ogbu, who also hails from Benue State, said: “After my father left my mother to marry another woman, my mum, who weaves simple hairstyles for a living in our village, could not take care of all six of us. So, my uncle advised her to send me and my 13-year-old younger sister to work as house girls in Lagos. My uncle took me and my sister from the village and brought us to Lagos. We have never worked before; neither had we ever visited Lagos until about three months ago. Although the woman I work with is nice to me, I wish I hadn’t left because I want to go to school. I stopped schooling after my father left us but my mother promised that after working for one year, I can return home to go to school. So, I am optimistic. However, my 13-year-old younger sister seems to be having a hard time where she is working in Ikorodu; she keeps begging my mum to allow her return to Benue but she refused, saying both of us should work for a year and see what happens with the bulk money she gets from us after one year.”
Asked why underage girls are usually employed as house helps, a Lagos based house help agent, who preferred anonymity, said: “More often than not, I and some other agents in the same line of business insist on ladies from 18 years and above. However, most of the people (women) who reach out to us to get them house help request for younger girls, who according to them, can be controlled. Some even say they want younger girls between ages 13-15 that would not seduce their husbands. A lot of these people have one or two ridiculous reasons for wanting children as house helps instead of young adults. Also, the family of the girls who we pick up from different places to work also prefers to give us their young teenagers who they expect to work for the family from age 13 and then return home to get married when they are 18 years old. That way, they would have made five years of income from them to take care of the family and raise the younger ones who also take over when they become young teenagers.
“This is our line of business; we are solving problems for families as both husbands and wives have to work and need someone to not only clean the house, do laundry, run errands but also cook and take care of their children. However, the issue of age is beyond us as both parties prefer to give and have young teenagers. More importantly, it’s not like we ever compel them to stay put in a place where they are badly treated. Before we take them to where they would work, we interview the people who want them and also do some orientation for the girls. We tell them to behave well and always remember that they are only with the people to work and should not over step their boundaries. However, if they sense danger at any point they should not hesitate to exit the place and return to us. While we have encountered a number of unfortunate incidents, we try our best to follow up on the girls from time to time and ensure that they are doing well. This is because should anything actually happen to them, we would be held responsible both by their parents and eventually the government. So, we ensure that all of these girls are properly documented and also refuse any client who we perceive to be dangerous or hostile – although sometimes you can’t tell these things just by mere facial expression and countenance.”
On where the girls that her agency deploys hail from, the agent replied: “They are mostly from Benue State and Saki Oke-Ogun in Oyo State. However, in recent times, we also have more people from Ebonyi and Plateau states. It is rare to find girls from other places. Initially, we used to have more girls from Calabar in Cross River State but that suddenly stopped years back.”
When asked if she is aware that taking underage girls to work is forced labour and an infringement of their fundamental rights, which is punishable under the Child Rights Act, the agent said: “I think it becomes an infringement of their rights if I go to their houses and pick them up without their parents or guardians’ consent. I don’t even go to them; their parents and guardians come to us to help employ their wards. So, perhaps if anyone is to be charged with any offence, it would be the parents and guardians, who give their children out to work.”
Would you allow your biological children to work as house helps? The agent took a deep breath, then responded: “I would never give my children out to do house help work. They are the reason I am working. The money I make from this job is what I use to provide for their education and needs.”
Speaking on how much she charges per person, she revealed that she pays parents or the house helps depending on the agreement, adding that she takes her own quota from the payment made by clients.
“I charge according to the job description by the clients and I pay the parents or girls 70 per cent while I take 30 per cent,” she revealed. When told that some house helps allege that the process of paying them is not transparent, the agent explained: “Most times the transactions and agreement are done between us and their parents, so these girls are not aware as their parents keep the payment plan away from them and insist that we do the same. However, when they eventually find out from the people they are working for, who aren’t supposed to disclose that to them as agreed during the contract, they begin to feel cheated. When that happens, we reach out to their family members and have them sort things with them.”
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