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Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

CHILD LABOUR FOR FAMILY POVERTY ALLEVIATION: A DEBACLE TO 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NIGERIAN CHILD: ‘LESSONS FROM 

RURAL COMMUNITIES OF EBONYI STATE’ 

                                                
                                           Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam, Francis A. Akwara, 

Godwin I. Udeuhele, Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua , Emmanuel O. Agha, Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 1Department of Political Science, 3Department of sociology 

Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu- Alike, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, 

Nigeria, 2 1Department of Political Science, Ebonyi State University, 

Abakaliki, Independent researcher, Enugu 

  
Abstract  

Child labour for family poverty alleviation is a daunting challenge facing both the children and 

their poor families in Ebonyi state rural communities. This phenomenon constitutes a debacle to 

impacted families because it is dehumanizing, erodes societal values and prolongs economic 

woes, (ILO, (2007 and Global child labour conference, 2010).  Its preponderance is not only 

detrimental to the health of the children involved, it also distorts their educational and overall 

development. Inferences from studies on child labour by Word Bank, (2000), UNICEF (2004), 

Human Right Watch, (2004) and UNRISD, (2005), revealed the existence of between 100 and 

200 million child labourers across the globe, with an embarrassing 20% of the data coming from 

Africa, (UNICEF 2004), showing that  African children, which of course include our research 

population; between the ages of 10-14 years, representing 17% of Africa’s total labour force, 

are actively engaged in this practice, (Word Bank, 2000, CBN 1999, Olaitan. et al, 2000). Using 

the social exclusion theory for the content analyses of qualitative data collected from the study, 

it was revealed that child labour practices remains a thriving enterprise among our research 

population in Ebonyi state rural communities, with adverse consequences on those impacted. 

The existence of these rural families under Nigerian government’s neglect having ossified 

extreme poverty among them, has also exacerbated child labour in the area. This paper there 

called to question the continued practice of child labour for family poverty alleviation despite its 

negative effects on this population. Accordingly, some recommendations as lasting solutions 

were in the areas of the need for the Nigerian Ebonyi state and government to enact stringent 

anti-child labour laws with punitive measures against its perpetrators, to serve as deterrent for 

its furtherance. Other recommendations were for greater involvement of help agencies through 

mitigations, advocacies, increased rural child education and the introduction of people-oriented 

programmes that promote improved socio-economic life and welfare for the rural dwellers of 

Ebonyi state. 

 

Key words: Child labour, family, poverty alleviation, debacle, Nigerian child, development, rural 

communities. 

 

INTRODUCTION 

Child labour is a form of wage earning 

activity in which children are engaged 

that has come over the years to constitute 

serious challenges to the development of 

 



 

 

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all affected children, (UNICEF 2004 and 

Human Right Watch 2004). It is a 

menace spreading across societies with 

devastating impact on rural communities 

of most developing nations such as those 

in the rural areas of Ebonyi state of 

Nigeria. There are incidences of high 

level of child abuses through illegal 

labour services which experts say 

ossifies underdevelopment among 

impacted families, (Immink and 

Olagoke, 1997). Some worse forms of 

child labour, which also exists among 

our research population; have been 

recorded to include child forced labour, 

child slavery, child debt bondage, child 

prostitution, and pornography as well as 

child trafficking, that impact negatively 

on the child’s overall development, (ILO 

Convention 182,1999a and 1999b). 

 

In weak Nations of the World such as 

Nigeria whose economies have 

maintained a steady depreciation under 

inept and corrupt political rulers, studies 

have mainstreamed inherent challenges 

of child labour as a major area 

highlighted as needing to be addressed, 

with clarion calls for concerted efforts 

being made on stake holders to pay 

greater attention to the scourge, 

((Muhammed, Gbenga, John, Tunji, 

Frank and Edward, 2008). Among 

nations of sub-Saharan Africa, Southern 

Asia and Latin America where various 

forms of poverty are associated with low 

level of socio-economic development, 

there also records of their having the 

highest level of child labour practices in 

their land, (UNRISD, 2005, World 

Bank, 2000), Olaitan et al, 2000). There 

are indices of poverty as a cause and 

effect of child labour with great impacts 

among citizens of nations of these 

societies due to the prevalence of 

political instability, leadership 

ineptitude and infrastructural decay, 

official corruption leading to 

consequential increases in discontent 

among the citizens, who then resort to 

child labour as a last option, 

(Nwachukwu et al 2000).  

 

The high prevalence of child labour 

among economically disadvantaged 

families of Ebonyi State rural 

communities is corroborated by reports 

of the United Nations International 

Children Education Fund which reveals 

the existence of between 100 and 200 

million child labourers across the globe 

with African children constituting an 

embarrassing 20% of the data, (UNICEF 

2004). The UNICEF data furthered that 

African children between the ages of 10-

14 years, (and even far lesser ages); 

represent 17% of Africa’s total labour 

force. This is a disturbing vicious circle 

which African leaders are hamstrung to 

address, evidenced among the rural 

dwellers of Ebonyi state of Nigeria, as a 

practice spiraling into variants of 

problems such denial of the child’s 

access to basic education which ossifies 

mass illiteracy across generations of 

these communities and their neighbors. 

Associated with these practices are child 

slavery, child abuses in social relations 

embedded in morality and sexuality, 

child prostitution, delinquency, 

engagement of school age youths as 

political thug, cultists, alcohol and drug 



 

 

24 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

related offences. Within these communities 

are also families thrown into generational 

pauperization arising from child abuses 

that lead them into fixated deprivations, 

physical and psychological trauma. 

These conditions are common among 

the rural dwellers that are unable to meet 

their daily social and economic 

obligations due to lack of access to 

farmland, health facilities, basic skills 

and education, a situation that places 

affected in near total losses of self-

esteem, high risks of exposure to 

diseases, infections, illness and high 

mortality rate, (CBN 1999).  

 

Despite the jamborees, publicity and 

gimmickry by both the Ebonyi state and 

Nigerian government about their 

achievements in poverty alleviation 

programmes for the rural dwellers, it is 

obvious that the positive impacts of such 

programmes are yet to be felt by the rural 

dwellers. There hardly seem to be any 

recorded success story by these rural 

dwellers regarding such programmes 

ostensibly initiated by government to 

alleviate their poverty. The failures of 

government in checkmating family 

poverty and child labour are alleged to 

be associated with sharp practices and 

infamies strengthened in government 

circles through a confederacy of 

profligacy in governance (Ibiam, 2014), 

between a decadent officials of the 

executive arm of government, inept 

political jobbers in the legislature, a 

compromised judiciary, corrupt law 

enforcement agencies, a weak civil 

society and a haplessly idle and self-

indulgent bureaucracy who have 

elevated corruption to an official 

instrument of governance in Nigeria. 

These failures of government and her 

agencies in addressing Nigeria’s 
development challenges having exacerbated 

the nation’s socio-economic woes, have 

inadvertently, ossified child labour 

practices for family poverty alleviation.  

 

Beyond governments’ illusory policy 

postures, grandstanding and propaganda 

towards poverty alleviation exemplified 

in a legion of phony socio economic 

relieve packages such as NAPEP and 

other agencies for poverty alleviation 

among impacted families, 

(NAPEP,2006;  www.Nigeria.first.org, 

NAPEP: 2008, www.NAPEP.Ng.org.), 

it is an indisputable fact that such 

programmes recorded colossal failures 

across the Niger in rural dwellers. Such 

failures have culminated into endless 

challenges facing rural communities in 

both Ebonyi state and other parts of 

Nigeria, with impacted families taking 

the painful decision of engaging their 

children in unwholesome practices such 

as child labour and other dehumanizing 

activities as a last resort to meet their 

family economic needs at the detriment 

of such children’s development.  

 

It can therefore be argued that child 

labour among families of Ebonyi state 

rural communities is partly a fall out of 

failed governance as well as a cause and 

effect of family poverty which has 

grown into a cankerworm with multi-

dimensional consequences on our 

research population. 

  

http://www.nigeria.first.org/
http://www.napep.ng.org/


 

 

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The Problem  

Child labour for family poverty 

alleviation constitutes a daunting 

challenge to the development of children 

of the families of the rural communities 

of Ebonyi state, Nigeria. Whatever the 

reasons may be, child labour is not only 

detrimental and inimical to the 

development of children of these rural 

communities of Ebonyi state, it is also a 

debacle to the future development of 

these people as its continued practice 

portend great danger of reversing their 

civilization back to the state of nature, 

(UNICEF 2004 and Human Right Watch 

2004).  

 

In an effort to address this menace, this 

paper called to question all circumstances 

that condition the exploitation of child 

labour for family poverty alleviation in 

the rural communities of Ebonyi state of 

Nigeria, in line with the growing 

concerns and contentions by researchers. 

The emphasis here was the need to 

expose the ills associated with child 

labour, draw strength from already 

existing mitigation efforts which may 

have been in existence across the globe, 

(ILO Convention 182, 1999a; ILO, 

1999b and Carneiro, 1977) and in that 

order provide alternative resolutions to 

the practice.  

 

Child labour has become Nigeria’s 

national dilemma which condition and 

dispose citizens to incidences of cruelty 

to the child against their call by nature to 

the responsibilities of providing for our 

children’s wellbeing. This is a major 

failure by the government and society at 

large in their duties to families that have 

rendered families vulnerable, thus 

causing them to resort to the use of 

available means to source economic 

relieve which are readily found in child 

labour. This conversely exposes the 

children so engaged in child labour to 

other forms of challenges such as 

vagrancy, wondering, destitution, crime 

and diseases. With the child so 

encumbered, other forms of challenges 

emerge in forms of family dislocation 

and disintegration, community disorder, 

socio-economic insecurity, general 

malady and sudden death of those 

impacted. 

 

This practice having become a challenge 

to human dignity and development, 

especially among Ebonyi state rural 

communities, require concerted efforts 

at its exposure, with lasting solutions 

provided through studies such as this 

that highlights specific cases within 

specific localities. 

 

Method:  

The methodology adopted in this study 

was exploratory design which dealt with 

qualitative research that did not require 

numerical data. Exploratory design was 

applied here in view of the prevalence of 

deviant characteristics within the study 

population which dealt with specific 

historical data regarding the 

circumstances under which the 

phenomena of child labour suffused and 

pervades, (Eboh, 2009; Shafi, 2011), 

guided by secondary literature arising 

from findings of previous related 

studies. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research


 

 

26 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

 As much as the purposes for the use of 

previous data from secondary sources as 

shown here may not have been 

envisaged by the original collectors who 

got such from quantitative analyses, the 

diverse usefulness of such data was duly 

acknowledged, (Bryman, 2016,). 

Furtherance to this, content analysis was 

applied in drawing inferences about 

child labour and related poverty 

conditions among the research 

population through processes that 

created a paradigm shift from being a 

mere academic exercise to a reality 

check that gave the study a ‘human face’ 

within simple people oriented 

communally based contextual 

perspectives that addressed the 

challenges of child labour for family 

poverty alleviation in Ebonyi state. 

 

Population and area of study 

The population of study was drawn from 

some rural communities of Ebonyi state 

of Nigeria. Out of the total state 

population of 2,176,947 citizens spread 

across the thirteen local government 

areas, (NPC 2006), some rural 

communities were purposeful chosen to 

provide manageable data for this study. 

The decision for the selection of some of 

the rural communities out of the entire 

population was occasioned by the 

challenges that faced this study in the 

area of capacity to manage the large 

populations under the circumstances of 

time and limited resources. Here the 

purposeful or judgmental technique 

(Black and Champion 1976 and Obasi, 

2005), was adopted as an approach 

which assured that the chosen rural 

communities possessed similar 

representative elements and 

characteristics for the entire population.  

 

As much as there have been studies on 

child labour among populations across 

climes by scholars based on wide ranges 

of perspectives, (UNICEF 2004 and 

Human Right Watch 2004, ILO 

Convention 182, 1999a; ILO, 1999b), 

our study focused on this specific 

portion of the population of Ebonyi state 

of Nigeria because of the dominant 

characteristics of child labour practices 

among most families in these areas. 

Such characteristics include abject 

poverty, rural slum life and poor 

sanitation and lack of basic socio-

economic amenities for the families as 

well as dearth of basic infrastructure 

such as good roads, electricity and good 

water supply. Others include low school 

enrolment and high dropout among their 

school age children, early girl child out 

of wedlock pregnancies, child marriage, 

child abandonment and homelessness 

for orphaned children as well as general 

community underdevelopment. All 

these pervaded among the research 

population of Ebonyi state to condition 

them to engage in child labour for 

poverty family alleviation.  
 

Poverty 

In generic terms, poverty is a condition 

under which persons, groups or 

communities lack the basic necessities 

of socio-economic existence. This 

involves endemic cases of lack of food, 

clothing, medical care and shelter as 

well as lack of access to financial 



 

 

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resources and other material 

requirements for a reasonable good 

human existence needed to give 

meaning to human social and economic 

life. 
 

Here, we can adopt a working definition 

of poverty as:   

 a state where an individual is 

not able to cater adequately for 

his or her basic needs of food, 

clothing and shelter, is unable to 

meet social and economic 

obligations, lacks gainful 

employment, skills, assets and 

self- esteem; and has limited 

access to social and economic 

infrastructure such as education, 

health, and portable water, but 

has high risks of       exposure to 

illness and even death… 

(Central Bank of 

Nigeria,1999:23) 

 

For the Word Bank (2000:10) the 

dimensions of poverty are also in the 

areas of lack ‘in psychological 

wellbeing, social exclusion, basic 

infrastructure, good health and assets. 

Arising from here, it can be argued that 

poverty is a historical phenomenon that 

has existed with mankind with diverse 

global impacts on people’s socio-

economic conditions. It afflicts and 

affects people in various depths across 

nations, continents and clime subject to 

the dialectics of the materialist 

conditions of existence of men as they 

contend for the ‘equitable’ allocation of 

the scarce resources of their societies, 

(Ake, 1982). ‘Poverty increases citizen’s 

vulnerabilities by depriving them basic 

education, leading to stagnated illiteracy 

which in turn poses multitudes of other 

challenges to contemporary ideals and 

values of civilized life. It creates a state 

of deprivation that makes the deprived 

vulnerable and violent in nature’, (Onah; 

2006), which in turn create situations 

with negative impacts on a nation’s body 

polity.  

 

Among our research population in 

Ebonyi state of Nigeria, poverty occurs 

to them fundamentally at the two fronts 

of lack of access to basic education and 

politically motivated socio-economic 

cleavages within which are subsumed 

other issues of bad governance, inept 

and corrupt political leadership as well 

as state complicity in orchestrated ethno-

religious differences that aggravate 

inequitable resource distribution. 

Stemming from these are other factors 

that range from national class 

characterization of citizens for vested 

interests, citizen’s rights deprivation and 

lack, as well as debt burden with adverse 

effects under which impacted families 

have continued to seek alternatives for 

survival which they find in the ‘dictum 

of using what one has, to get what he 

needs’; which finds expression in child 

labour and other unwholesome practices 

among impacted families. Pressured by 

challenges of low industrialization, low 

productivity, unemployment, high 

population growth rate, massive rural-

urban migration, poor human resource 

development and gender bias common 

among dependent nations such as 

Nigeria, (Otu, Ibiam, and Agha, 2015), 



 

 

28 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

citizens have continued to get by 

through unwholesome practices su.ch as 

child labour. 

 

Our research population exist as part of 

the citizens of the Nigerian nation cited 

by the United Nations Development 

Programme (UNDP) with high poverty 

burden in its debut on Human 

Development index (HDI) report of 

2006 which ranked Nigeria at the 137th 

position out of 174 nations bedeviled by 

poverty, measured at a value of 0.4, 

(UNRISD, 2005, Ekpeyong and Assian 

2011). The indicators in these reports 

show that any country with HDI value 

below 0.5 is considered to house very 

extremely poor citizens which is the 

pathetic case of Nigeria with an HDI 

value of 0.4 that falls below the 0.5 

standard, under which poverty pervades 

to continue pushing the citizens into 

various forms of unethical practices that 

does not even spare children.  

 

This is a vice that entangles the families 

involved into greater socio-economic 

woes, exemplified in the experiences of 

families among our research population 

in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. Here families 

who engage their children in child 

labour have not only lost their children 

to this menace, they have also suffered 

double jeopardy in the hands of 

unscrupulous child labour agents and 

merchants. They experience disruptions 

of regular payment of agreed stipends 

often offered to them through indirect 

contact persons and channels who do not 

only enslave theses children but also 

betray the social contract trusts reposed 

on them by deliberately defaulting in the 

payment of agreed sums to these 

impoverished families. In many 

instances, this ordeal has often led to 

conflicts between the parties with 

violence meted against such families 

because impacted families have gone too 

far to put pressure on such unscrupulous 

individuals and groups to keep their 

bond. Punitive and extreme measures 

have often been taken by the agents and 

merchants that ‘uncooperative and 

recalcitrant’ families have suffered 

permanent losses such as disconnections 

of contact with their children in the 

process, as their children are often carted 

away like cargo to distant farm lands and 

factories in unknown cities where they 

face perpetual affliction. Under 

deliberately orchestrated antagonistic 

relations between the families and the 

child labour agents, children from 

blacklisted families have often been 

separated and subjected to untold 

hardship that include physical, 

psychological torture to modern day 

slavery, sexual abuses, child 

prostitution, various forms of inhuman 

treatments and sudden death.  

 

These families are alleged to have 

suffered such loses without any form of 

legal actions undertaken on their behalf 

because of their families’ poverty, 

illiteracy and lack of access to legal 

services. In few cases where some of the 

children subjected to these indignities 

were fortunate to escape from their task 

masters in the ensuing imbroglio, they 

have often ended up in strange lands and 

urban areas as street urchins, child 



 

 

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prostitutes, street gang stars, illicit drug 

peddlers or addicts and armed robbers 

who feed on society as agents of the 

criminal underworld.   

 

Beyond the socio-economic, health, 

security and other forms of hazards 

poverty poses to those impacted, it also 

triggers off processes of endemic 

generational poverty in their children 

and the society, (Nwabueze, 1992). 

These are abundantly evidenced in the 

life of those impacted among the 

helpless rural dwellers under study in 

Ebonyi State, whose common 

characteristics include stark illiteracy, 

ignorance and social malaise, (Okojie, 

1987and Nmom, 2003), as well as 

structural inequalities that ossify 

national under development, (Appel 

2009). Faced with these general societal 

challenges and other personal problems 

of lack of access to basic needs of life 

and avenues of redressing abuses 

associated with their poverty conditions, 

(UNICCE, 1999), families so impacted 

have often increased their vulnerability 

by sending more of their children into 

the labour market for family poverty 

alleviation, thus engaging in situations 

that accelerate them to higher 

vulnerability to extreme poverty, 

(Ekpeyong ed., 2011). 

  

Chester surveys published by Nigeria’s 

Federal Office of Statistics (FOS) and 

UNICEF, (2009), as well other related 

studies under (UNDP), UNFPA, World 

Bank and WHO, (2012b), buttress our 

position with serious indicators of 

extreme poverty among a greater 

number of citizens of developing nations 

that include Nigerians in forms that lead 

citizens into risky survivalist tendencies 

such as child prostitution, theft, armed 

robbery, street gang life styles, illicit 

drugs peddling and child labour.  

 

In Nigeria, the failure of governments 

over the decades at addressing the 

nation’s socio-economic woes such as 

inept national leadership, impunity and 

corruption and other economic debacles 

which have been elevated to state crafts, 

it was established that indeed our 

research population which falls within 

the strata of citizens in Nigeria’s rural 

communities with high poverty 

incidence, (Okojie, 1987), are brazenly 

motivated into vices.  

 

There can therefore be no over 

emphasizing the fact that the end of 

poverty occasioned by child labour and 

all its other associated ills may remain a 

mirage among our research population 

Ebonyi State rural communities of 

Nigeria, if the ever increasing 

catastrophe of citizen’s income levels 

and access to secure socio-economic 

livelihood. This assertion stems from 

ever increasing challenges of social 

insecurity, citizens’ unequal access to 

economic and wealth distribution as well 

as high level of external national 

economic dependency (Olaitan. et al, 

2000 cited by Okonkwo, 2006) that 

cumulatively dispose poor rural families 

to adopt survivalist strategies such as 

child labour.  

 

 



 

 

30 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

Child Labour   

In generic terms, child labour is the 

engagement of a child in activities 

demanding the exertion of such a child’s 

burgeoning energy in highly demanding 

rigorous socio-economic reproduction 

process beyond such a child’s capacities 

for wages that often accrue to other 

persons. This practice which has become 

a global socio-economic phenomenon 

traces its wide spread to outset of the 

industrial revolution in the interest of 

bourgeoisie’s wealth accumulation 

which many scholars have continued to 

contend against in view of its challenges 

to the development of the young child.  

 

Anugwom (1997:8) 

opines that; 

at the onset of industrial revolution 

when displaced citizens of 

England’s sources of     livelihood 

could no longer be guaranteed by 

access to land occasioned by 

capitalists’ enclosure movement, 

families’ quest to meet economic 

needs amidst rising cost of living; 

had them mobilize every member of 

the family into paid employment. In 

this process, many poor and 

uneducated parents put their 

children to work in factories in 

order to earn money for the upkeep 

of the family, 

 

Arising from the above and other 

vagaries of industrial revolution, labour 

in general and child labour in particular, 

became commoditized to be bought and 

sold across societies for economic 

benefits of the highest bidder. While 

bourgeois capitalism continued to exert 

dominance over the labour of men in 

their socio-economic re-production 

processes, class divisions among 

citizens of societies became ossified 

along the strata of the rich and poor, 

resulting to wealth accumulation in the 

interest of the rich. This in turn created a 

corresponding order of alienation, 

misery, conflict, physical and mental 

poverty which remains the lot of those 

the system adversely impacted, (Marx 

cited in Ake, 1981). 

 

Inferring from these arguments, it is 

furthered that historically, industrial 

revolution marked the water shed to the 

involvement of children in the labour 

market as beasts of burden for their task 

masters as a means of earning paltry 

wages for family up keep.  

 

With the acceleration of 

industrialization and its vagaries and 

subsequent invasion of Africa for the 

supply of cheap raw materials and cheap 

labour which led to unhealthy rivalry 

among European interests in Africa, 

resulting to the 1885 Berlin conference 

where Africa was partitioned for 

European colonization for their effective 

economic interests (Coleman, 1958). 

Following on the heels of this 

partitioning was the excruciating cheap 

labour services engaged in by 

indigenous Africans in favour of the 

colonial administrators within which 

African children were subjected to 

harrowing conditions for European 

economic development, (Rodney, 

2005).  Child labour exploitation was 



 

 

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engaged in by the opportune class 

without a thought for the consequences 

on the labourers, their gender and ages, 

a situation that left in its wake a vicious 

circle that deepened child labour 

exploitation across Africa.  

 

Data on the vagaries of child labour in 

human society across climes exist in 

literature under which scholars such as 

Amin (1994); created distinctions about 

its practice based on some motivators for 

families’ engagement of their children in 

such labours. Research findings by the 

UNDP (1994), United Nations (UN) 

(1998), UNICEF (2009) and ILO 

(2007), UCW and ILO, (2010), also 

provide guide, relevant information and 

succinct reference data that give deeper 

insight and understanding of the vicious 

circle of poverty occasioned by child 

labour practices.  

 

Contemporary Africa is on its part 

becoming entangled in the 

commoditization of the labour of 

children, lip service efforts being made 

to mitigate its practice. This situation 

which has pressured affected families 

into the unholy act of child labour for 

family poverty alleviation is common 

place among poor rural and urban slum 

dwellers who continue to engage in child 

labour practices without the consent and 

willingness of the child in question, 

(ILO, 2007 and Dobson, 2009).  Despite 

perceived and actual challenges child 

labour pose to the over-all development 

of the child and their families, the 

practice continues to gather obnoxious 

momentum among the rural 

communities of Ebonyi State where 

cherished decades old traditional 

communal family life styles are being 

swept away. The infamies of child 

labour for family poverty alleviation has 

indeed truncated familial bonds that 

strengthen the mental, emotional, 

physical, social, educational and overall 

development of affected children.  

 

The debate on child labour for family 

poverty alleviation  

Amidst all the arguments for and against 

child labour, liberalist proponents have 

maintained that child labour is not as 

problematic as it is being presented, 

considering the various opportunities it 

offers the affected child in terms of 

employment, skill acquisition and 

empowerment as well as wealth creation 

to the families involved. These 

proponents justify their position on 

socio-economic determinants as the 

major factors that dispose poor families 

and guardians towards child child labour 

practices, (Bass, 2004).  

 

They further that the necessities of 

socio-economic survival are major 

imperatives that cause pauperized 

families to seek for other sources of 

extra income for family poverty 

alleviation, by engaging all family hands 

on deck. These scholars aver that it is 

only those with a positive outlook on life 

that survive today’s challenges based on 

the motivation to think and act outside 

the box. To these pro-child labour 

analysts, surviving today’s competitive 

socio-economic life demands that poor 

families must put all available hands on 



 

 

32 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

the plough and if doing so requires 

factoring in their children’s labour to 

improve family income, then efforts 

have to be made to accommodate the 

same in families.  These proponents 

further that under severe domestic and 

socio-economic challenges, parents are 

required to fend for their families within 

legitimate bounds, to this end, such 

families are compelled to engage in 

inwards sourcing which many easily 

find in child labour, (Binder and Sorgin, 

1999). Popular opinion here holds that 

though such situations have in few cases 

posed some degrees of physical, 

psychological and emotional disorder to 

members of some families, the fact 

remains that in the competitive world of 

today, families must work out survival 

strategies beyond the dependency 

syndrome. Unfortunately, most parents 

operating on this mantra have become 

enmeshed in greater problems with their 

responsibilities as parents, resulting to 

greater problems such as the distortion 

of family bonds and loss of children. 

 

On the contrary, proponents of 

egalitarianism and child rights 

protection who stand vehemently 

opposed to child labour of any kind have 

argued that as much as the capitalist 

system encourages individualist 

endeavours by citizens for socio-

economic survival, the conditions that 

foster labour practices differ from one 

clime to another. Subject to existing 

customs, values and laws that protect the 

right of citizens against abuses, the 

exploitation of the labour of individuals 

must not encourage practices that 

jeopardize the proper development of 

children.  

 

Accepted that families’ abject poverty 

remains a cause and effect of child 

labour which arise from wider socio-

economic improprieties that frustrate 

individuals and families access to the 

welfare provisions of society, it does not 

imply that the future of children should 

be compromised for the family succor. 

As much as families may lack access to 

employment opportunities, social 

security and services, such must not 

compel parents to engage their children 

in child labour as a means of getting by 

on daily needs, (Okojie, 1987and 

Crosson, 2008). 

 

Anti-child labour scholars argue further 

that family decisions to engage in child 

labour are often taken as last resorts, 

compulsion and in some cases such 

decisions are often taken under pressure 

from child labour merchants whose 

impunity often creates room for them to 

take undue advantage of impacted 

families. Other factors here include; a 

failed state welfare system occasioned 

by elite conspiracy with the rentier state 

to expropriate the resources of 

dependent societies such as Nigeria, for 

vested interests to the detriment of 

citizen’s welfare, (Ibiam, 2014). Such 

situations can be found in circumstances 

such as structural inequalities, adverse 

socio-economic environment that 

negatively affect poor and weak 

families, wide spread illiteracy among 

the rural dwellers, family members’ 

health challenges, poor wages, mass 



 

 

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retrenchment of workers, unemployment 

and general national under development, 

(Appel, 2009, and Nwabueze, 1992).   

 

Evidence abound about the adverse 

consequences of child labour to show 

how children are often permanently 

separated from their families and homes 

while in a faraway wild world where 

their only choice for staying alive is to 

yield to the dictates of their tormentors 

in fear of punishment, rejection, 

destitution and other dangers they stand 

to face in lands if their masters or 

mistresses rejects them. A few have 

taken the brave decision of taking their 

destiny in their hands by running away 

from their tormentors to distant cities 

where they live at nature’s mercies. 

 

Despite these arguments, the fact 

remains that child labour is a serious 

socio-economic problem to humanity 

that must be eliminated. As much as 

children need to be engaged in some 

form of work as a means of training them 

to acquire skills and relevant knowledge, 

preparatory to their adult life, there is 

also the need for the separation of child 

labour from child work. Child work is an 

acceptable African child development 

processes within the African socio-

cultural compacts, because of its focus 

on the values of treating the child as a 

divine gift from God to be cherished, 

protected and trained to sustain the 

genealogy of the family, without 

commoditizing their labour, (Haspels 

and Suriyasrn 2003). Since African 

families pride themselves in the proper 

upbringing of their children by nurturing 

and training them to acquire skills with 

which they can sustain their own 

families at adulthood, children in this 

order should always be engaged in child 

work, each according to his or her age 

and ability; based on laid down African 

traditional educational practices for the 

development of children beyond any 

consideration that subject them to 

unnecessary hardship and exploitation. 

 

Juxtaposing child work or domestic 

work in traditional African societies 

against child labour in contemporary 

capitalist Africa respectively, we argue 

that while the former is operated, 

moderated and superintended within the 

family, for the greater benefit of the 

child and family without any 

considerations for profit motive, the 

latter being the contemporary child 

labour practice based on capitalist 

values, does not coincide in domain with 

the interests of the African child and the 

family, (Okpara, 1986, Okojie, 1987 and 

Adudu, 1989).  

 

Mitigations  

Mitigations against poverty, child labour 

and related practices do exist in both 

Ebonyi state and Nigeria as well as at the 

international arena in forms of 

advocacy, public policies and laws 

coupled with public-private sector 

partnerships and international 

collaborations aimed at discouraging the 

practice.  

 

The ILO convention No.182 identifies 

as the worse form of child abuse among 

nations to include all forms of child 



 

 

34 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

slavery, forced or compulsory child 

labour, compulsory recruitment of child 

soldiers into armed conflicts, 

engagement of children in child 

prostitution, pornography, illicit drug 

related activities and involvement of 

children in work that may be injurious to 

their health, (Ugbaja, 1999:20). 

 

The year 2009 United Nations’ adoption 

of the Secretary General’s report number 

110, which sought for global support for 

the elimination of child labour 

emphasized that child labour being; ‘any 

work carried out by children in 

conditions below those established by 

the United Nations Convention or by 

ILO standards should be considered as 

economic exploitation against the child 

which must be discouraged’. Article 32 

of the Convention of the Rights of the 

Child (CRC) of 1989 outlines the right 

of children including their being 

protected from performing any work that 

is likely to be hazardous to their 

wellbeing, interferes with their 

education or is harmful to their health, 

physical, mental, spiritual, moral or 

social development as well as work 

which exposes them to economic 

exploitation. Paragraph 2, of the same 

article further encourages member states 

to have regard to ‘the relevant provisions 

of other international instruments’, when 

setting rules governing the minimum age 

and conditions of employment of young 

persons.  

 

Within this domain, some solutions have 

been projected in the areas of broad 

protection, prevention, law enforcement, 

and victim assistance as are documented 

in the UNO resolutions on child labour 

exemplified in the declaration of the 

International Year of the Child in 1979 

(Ebigbo, 1988). These efforts gave salvo 

to the enactment of national laws by 

member states pursuant to the protection 

of the right of the child. These are the 

areas where 1989 U.N. Convention on 

the Rights of the Child, the 1999 I.L.O. 

documents on ‘Worst Forms of Child 

Labour Convention’, and the year 2000 

U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and 

Punish Trafficking in Persons, 

especially Women and Children 

becomes fundamental.  

 

It can however be conceded that 

Nigerian government has made efforts at 

the protection of the child since 1899, 

under the colony of Southern Nigeria, 

(Akukwe, 1979), followed by other legal 

pronouncements of 1958, 1966, 1974, 

(Okeke, 1988), caped with the 1974 

Labour Act. This 1974 act collated all 

other efforts to state clearly that no child 

shall be employed to work under any 

form of labour for wages in whatever 

capacity except in the light of work done 

for family agricultural, horticultural and 

domestic good as may be permitted by 

the family with the approval of the 

Labour Minister. The Nigerian 

Government also took the child labour 

show boat to the UN presumably to join 

serious member states to formally adopt 

the three International Labour 

Organization (ILO) conventions which 

set the minimum rules for the 

employment of children at sea, in 

industry and underground.  In addition, 



 

 

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the country signed a memorandum of 

understanding in August 2003 in 

collaboration with ILO to launch a 

country wide programme under the 

International Programme for the 

Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), 

(Akukwe, 1979). Government went a 

step further to attempt the 

implementation of the West Africa 

Cocoa Agriculture Project (WACAP) 

and passed the law on child Rights Act 

Sections 28 and 29 which sought to 

prohibits exploitative labour, 

enforceable under sections 58 – 64 of the 

labour Decree of 1974, now the Labour 

act.  Other mitigations against child 

labour practices have also been 

approached from a broad consensus 

which focuses on preventing children 

from entering into child labour in the 

first instance, through advocacies among 

the citizens with a focus on the 

economically disadvantaged families at 

the rural areas who form the vulnerable 

target groups in the efforts at ending 

child labour.  

 

Unfortunately, our study population in 

the rural communities of Ebonyi state 

presents a test case of a people who these 

mitigations against child labour 

practices may not have impacted 

positively. As much as these mitigations 

may have in principle, existed in Nigeria 

and indeed in Ebonyi state for ages, the 

level of awareness among the rural 

dwellers of the areas studied remains 

dismal. There is a near total absence of 

government efforts at bringing 

mitigation policies against child labour 

to the people. This explains the reason 

for the massive involvement of those in 

the rural communities in child labour 

practices. Common efforts at advocacies 

and mass education of the rural dwellers 

about the ills of child labours have 

remained a tall order, beyond the lame 

policies enacted by government and the 

international jamborees on child labour 

attended by Nigerian rulers. Child 

labour has remained on the increase in 

the absence of the enabling 

environment, infrastructure and social 

welfare security in these Ebonyi State 

rural communities needed to encourage 

poor families to seek for their poverty 

alleviation beyond child labour. 

 

Theoretical underpinning 

The social exclusion theory was adopted 

for this study based on its explanation of 

the processes and consequences of 

marginalization and exclusion of 

individuals and groups or segments of 

the people of a given society from 

participating in sharing the resources 

and opportunities available in their 

society.  

 

This theory opines that through the 

political calculations of the dominant 

exploiter class in control of specific 

states’ apparatuses, (Ibiam, 2014), the 

trajectory of citizens’ access to the 

distribution and consumption of public 

wealth are often skewed to favour 

specific individuals or groups to the 

detriment of the larger population. 

  

Proponents of this theory include Lee, 

(ed.), (1975), Pacione, (1977), Walker, 

(1977) and Hills, (1997) whose works 



 

 

36 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

have contributed immensely to the 

efforts being made to address the 

challenges of socio-economic inequality 

among societies. There are various 

forms of negative and inhuman practices 

sustained by the ruling class in most 

crude capitalist societies that ossify 

discrimination, marginalization, rights 

denials and expropriation of the masses 

by the few opportune class. Social 

exclusion often occurs in such societies 

through varying form of systematic 

deprivations that may have started as 

acts of social bias, stereotype and 

prejudice which then grow into social 

stigma, degenerating into discrimination 

and rejection. Here a systematic 

separation of specific segments of the 

given society are often mobilized 

through an elitist instigation of their 

sectarian, religious and ethnic group 

alliances to threaten the interest of those 

targeted for negative actions. This is 

then followed by other actions motivated 

by political actors at different societal 

levels for purposes of consolidating their 

access to the control of the national 

economy, environment, resources and 

other forms of social benefits in favour 

of their class.  

  

In Nigeria, this class has continued to 

create differentials among the citizens 

through acts of deprivation, 

marginalization, disempowerment and 

alienation which crystallize into forms 

of relations that pitch those perpetually 

disadvantaged against the opportune 

class, who the former see as their 

oppressors, (Otu, Ibiam and Agha 2015). 

Responses to this order by those 

excluded have often resulted to 

discontent and acrimony which 

permeate through the fabrics of the 

society to impact the nation’s socio-

economic and other forms of 

development and in that process create 

new forms of social order that leaves in 

its wake social actions that include civil 

disobedience, demonstrations, 

upheavals and internal strife (Ibiam 

2011, 2014). By extension, this order has 

unwittingly degenerated into citizen 

malaise towards their state which often 

causes affected citizens to quest for 

solutions to their needs by other means 

possible, now found common among the 

rural communities of Ebonyi State of 

Nigeria.  

 

Among our research population in the 

rural communities of Ebonyi exist these 

conditions created by the ‘dominant 

class in control of the state structures’, 

(Ibiam, and Itumo, 2014), instituted 

through definite state policies which 

benefit their idiosyncratic pervasions 

through political actions that orchestrate 

economic deprivations, that ossify abject 

poverty among the larger populace in the 

state.   

 

The relevance of this theory to this study 

lies in its advocacy that resolving 

problems of poverty and child labour 

require mitigations aimed at re-focusing 

re-invigorating the inherent capacities of 

those impoverished to encourage their 

resilience and ingenuity as a means to 

increasing their socio-economic 

productivity. It requires taking proactive 

measures through advocacy and material 



 

 

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empowerment to encourage marginalized 
persons to shift their efforts away from 

child labour practices as a last resort 

towards other forms of survival 

strategies such as entrepreneurial 

activities that promote human dignity.  

 

Beyond the hue and cry as well as the 

grandstanding of the ruling class on 

issues of poverty alleviation in Nigeria, 

(NAPEP, 2001) this theory exposes the 

inherent contradictions regarding the 

roles of the ruling class in the sustenance 

of various forms of exploitation of the 

impoverished populace, which propel 

the poor rural dwellers into child labour 

practices. The theory advocates for 

conditions that encourage citizens to 
stand against exploitation, marginalization, 
segregation and dehumanization as well 

as other acts of citizen exclusion from 

participating in the distribution of their 

society’s resources.  

 

This theory furthers that citizens 

negatively impacted under social 

exclusion in their societies should be 

discouraged from resorting to survivalist 

tendencies with grave implications on 

both their families and their children, 

which rural dwellers find solace in child 

labour for family poverty alleviation and 

that often degenerate into a life time 

family albatross. We can therefore argue 

under the social exclusion theory that the 

pauperized condition of the rural 

dwellers forces them to negatively 

oriented self-reliance within which they 

resort to the use of what they have to get 

what they need, easily found in child 

labour for family poverty alleviation. 

Positive attitudes towards life challenges 

is what is required of those marginalized 

in society based on their ability to 

mobilize their inner energies and social 

contacts to forge new forms of frontiers 

to create new social and economic 

relations within which they re-tool 

themselves inwardly and outwardly 

based on humane positive approaches.  

 

They must reach out to each other to 

form clusters of self-help and improvise 

with available resources that include 

their inner capacities, intelligence, 

creativity, craftsmanship, and social 

relationships to build cohesions and 

cooperative groups and deploy the same 

to challenge their environment to eke out 

a living beyond self-defeatist and 

destructive practices such as child 

labour.  

 

On a wider perspective, this theory seeks 

for concerned individuals and groups 

who can gather support around those 

negatively impacted by child labour 

practices to create turn around 

conditions that give rise to positive 

actions for their development. The 

challenges of child labour within this 

domain requires that positive actions are 

taken by help agencies and 

Nongovernmental organizations 

(NGOs), faith-based organizations 

(FBOs) and humanitarian bodies to aid 

those marginalized and impoverished 

among our research population in the 

rural communities of Ebonyi state so 

they can reach out to self-help 

programmes beyond expectations of 



 

 

38 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

help from the government that may 

never come their way.  

 

Findings 
This study established existent 

correlations between child labour and 

family poverty under which indicators in 

the two variables exist as twin 

challenges to citizens of the rural 

communities of Ebonyi state, Nigeria. 

There are consequential impacts of child 

labour as a cause and effect of poverty 

across various socio-economic strata of 

our research population and indeed 

among other societies. The relationship 

family poverty and child labour existing 

as economic linkages to each other such 

that each constitutes a conditioner and 

outcome of the other in a vicious circle. 

Out of these are variants of challenges 

that include perpetual abject poverty, 

child abuse in forms of denial of the 

child’s access to basic education, which 

ossifies mass illiteracy across 

generations, child slave labour leading 

to other occurrences which are 

embedded in moral and sexual abuses, 
child prostitution, delinquency, alcoholism, 

drug abuse and violent crimes.  

 

Without their consent and sometimes 

forcefully, children from the rural 

communities of Ebonyi State, Nigeria 

are shipped to various cities of Nigeria 

to serve as house helps, shop or bar 

tenders depending on their ages and 

farm or factory workers. Some also are 

taken by brothel operators as child 

prostitutes, pimps, street beggars and 

agents of various unimaginable anti-

social activities that rake in huge sums 

of money for their exploiters. In 

exchange for these services to be 

rendered by these children that are not 

usually disclosed to their families; some 

inconsequential monetary payments, 

stipends and gifts in kind are made to 

parents by agents on behalf of their 

would-be masters or mistresses. These 

children are then taken to various cities 

and locations across the length and 

breadth of Nigeria where they are 

subjected to dehumanizing conditions 

that often cut them off from the social 

ties of family life. 

 

There are often intricate webs of 

linkages that create difficulties for the 

child labourers entangled in the system 

to abscond or be saved from their 

exploiters orchestrated through 

contracts with ignoramus and greedy 

uncles, aunties, relatives and friends. 

Such transactions are designed to 

hoodwink and commit the small minded 

poor parents of such children 

unwittingly into eternal contracts that 

place their children on a perpetual 

servitude and sometimes modern day 

slavery that undermines their future 

development.        

 

Within this circle are specific challenges 

faced by the child involved in this 

practice in forms like physical and 

psychological cruelty, destitution, 

various kinds of deprivation and health 

challenges. There are also issues of 

problems of family dislocation, 

disintegration, poverty of various shapes 

and shades, community disorder, socio-

economic insecurity and general malady 



 

 

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for all so enmeshed in the imbroglio 

culminating into violence and sudden 

death for the parents and even the child 

in some cases. 

  

This study further established that 

children from our population of study in 

Ebonyi state of Nigeria are often 

contracted out into the labour market at 

very tender ages through syndicates. A 

great number of such child labourers 

from these rural communities of the state 

are either migratory, transitional or 

permanent labourers whose wages 

accrue to some other persons than their 

parents or themselves. They are 

provided with bare necessities that keep 

them alive for the next day’s labour as 

hawkers, farm workers, menial workers 

in factories, peddlers and traffickers of 

various forms of illicit products sourced 

through middlemen and subsidiary 

business syndicates who hold 

hegemonic control over them.  

 

Poverty, inequality and insecurity 

remain the major factors responsible for 

child labour among the communities 

where the percentage of absolute 

poverty continues to rise with the levels 

of incomes of over 65 percent of citizens 

dropping continually, (Aniekwe, 2002).  

Under the pressure of survivalist 

tendencies, most parents and guardians 

have resorted to subjecting their children 

and wards to one form of child labour or 

the other. Other factors responsible for 

child labour among the research 

population were identified in the areas of 

parental death, separation of parents or 

guardians, illiteracy, (Aniekwe 2002), 

traditional believes, customs, values 

systems, social insecurity, (Onukwuli 

2002). As well as parental negligence of 

responsibilities to their children, and 

ineptitude on the part of government 

officials involved in the enforcement of 

child protection acts and laws of Nigeria, 

(Illoh, 1999). 

 

Discussion  

The burden of resolving child labour 

practices is principally anchored on the 

need for concerted efforts at prevention 

against the odds of seeking solutions to 

the challenges posed by the practice in 

our society. As onerous and tasking as 

preventing child labour may seem, 

considering its wide range and diverse 

dimensions; the basis lies in preventing 

the circumstances that compel families 

to engage in it for family poverty 

alleviation.  

It is disturbing and disappointing that 

despite all the mitigations through 

international and national declarations, 

advocacies official state policies and 

legal frameworks against child labour, 

the practice has continued unabated. In 

the midst of all the mitigations, child 

labour practices remains on the increase, 

leaving in its wake emotional, 

psychological and physical dislocations 

for both the children and their families.  

Associated with these are family 

disintegration, rural poverty, varying 

degrees of child abuse, rural-urban slum, 

misery, high mortality, sicknesses, 

diseases and death, (Word Bank, 2000, 

CBN, 1999, Olaitan. et al, 2000 and 

Global child labour conference, 2010 

and Ekpeyong, 2011). Child labour 



 

 

40 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

practices have not only come to stay as a 

menacing socio-economic way of life, it 

has also put rural communities in a multi 

phased dilemma. Just as many 

communities of Nations of Sub-Sahara 

Africa are overwhelmed by poverty that 

leads them to attempt getting by through 

child labour, (UNICEF, 2004), the same 

is predictably playing out in the abject 

poverty of citizens of Ebonyi state rural 

communities. 

 

Without succor and external help, many 

pauperized families have accepted the 

failure of their political leaders and have 

accordingly resorted to child labour. 

Rather than engage in street begging, or 

sit at home to wait for death induced by 

hunger and diseases, or even engage in 

contentions, agitations, strive and social 

action that may endanger them and 

exacerbate their conditions, (Ikejiaku, 

2009), those impacted have reluctantly 

resorted to child labour practices. Cases 

exist of families discovering too late that 

they have been hoodwinked into 

enslaving their children to perpetual 

bondage under unprofitable child labour. 

Such discoveries have led such families 

into depression and other forms of 

psychological disorder which sooner 

than later result into disasters for the 

family in various forms that includes 

terminal diseases and sudden death.  

  

Most of the families among our research 

population are living with tales of woes 

that befell them from the consequences 

of child labour, with affected children 

growing into adulthood imbued with 

negative and anti-social traits that often 

cause other members of the society to 

see them as outcasts, social deviants and 

criminals. As adults, they exist along 

deviant life patterns that lead to negative 

parenting models within which they 

construe child labour as a norm. They 

wallow in ignorance and illiteracy while 

degenerating into a life that is 

disinclined to the norms of a civilized 

society. Seeing nothing wrong in 

engaging children as labourers, they 

establish a pattern of transaction that 

subjects every child within their 

neighborhood, including theirs to 

various forms of trauma associated with 

child labour.  

 

Conclusion  

Child labour is a human catastrophe 

which rural families of Ebonyi state are 

recycling among themselves despite the 

harrowing experiences evidenced in the 

lives of escapee and returnee child 

labourers who have told tales of woes to 

others. Child labour and the associated 

problems have lingered among citizens 

due to class appropriation interests 

orchestrated through ‘the conspiracy 

between the Nigerian hegemonic 

predatory elite and the rentier state’ that 

viciously expropriate the society’s 

resources, (Ibiam, and Itumo, 2014). 

This has led to alarming increases in 

incidence of poverty level and other 

development problems profoundly felt 

among the rural populace, which are 

evidently found among our research 

population.  

 

The sources of the problems of child 

labour were also identified in this study 



 

 

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as being multi-phased with the 

environment, the government, political 

leaders, cultural practices, families and 

individuals having a fair share of the 

blame. It was established in this study 

that among the rurak dwellers of Ebonyi 

state of Nigeria, child labour is primarily 

induced by family poverty which 

conversely rebounds to encumber family 

challenges and multiply the poverty 

conditions of these rural dwellers. No 

matter the arguments and semantics in 

the discourse across the divide to either 

justify or condemn child labour 

practices, the fact remains that child 

labour cannot help family poverty 

alleviation; its entry into any family 

deepens the poverty of families so 

impacted.  

 

We can conclude here by asserting that 

there was a near total lack of advocacy 

from public spirited individuals, help 

agencies, the civil society and social 

partners against child labour practices 

across these communities with 

necessary awareness among our 

research population of the rural 

communities of Ebonyi state about the 

challenges of this practice being at a near 

zero level.  Child labour remains a 

thriving way of life among the rural 

communities of Ebonyi state, despite 

claims by the government and other help 

agencies that family poverty alleviation 

services were being provided for these 

rural communities as a means of 

discouraging them from such harmful 

practices. 

 

 

Recommendations 

As much as the solutions to the 

challenges of child labour for family 

poverty alleviation are in their legions, 

the first step lies in the recognition by all 

citizens of nations that it is an endemic 

problem that must be eradicated. We 

must all recognize that children are gifts 

of God bestowed on us to cherish, 

nurture and groom to develop the best of 

their abilities, each according to his or 

her calling by nature for the sustenance 

of our generations. We must all agree 

that it is unacceptable for the same adults 

who enjoyed the best of society’s love 

and care under our fore fathers during 

their time as children of the past, to turn 

around and form cartels and syndicates 

that engage in obnoxious and inhuman 

practices that compromise today’s 

children under child labour for profit 

motives.  

 

To overcome child labour challenges, 

there is need for political leaders and 

governments to be responsive in 

fulfilling their primary duties through 

the provision of necessary development 

infrastructure and social welfare 

services for the citizens. There is need 

for new strategic approaches to the 

design and adoption of public policies 

which touch on citizen’s welfare that 

will in turn re-position families for 

improved socio-economic conditions 

needed to discourage child labour and its 

challenges. Emphasis should be placed 

on prevention and protection of children 

in vulnerable families and communities 

against the merchants of child labour 



 

 

42 | P a g e  

 

 

Child Labour for Family Poverty Alleviation: A Debacle to the Development of the Nigerian Child: ‘Lessons from Rural 
Communities of Ebonyi State’ 

Okechukwu Egwu Ibiam; Francis A. Akwara; Godwin I. Udeuhele; Okechukwu Groupson P. 

Christopher C. Arua; Emmanuel O. Agha; Joy U. Egwu. Ibiam 

 

with criminal legal imperatives put in 

place to prosecute offenders. 

 

Higher premium should be placed on the 

provision of palliatives, welfare services 

and economic empowerment for 

pauperized rural families in both Ebonyi 

state and other communities ravaged by 

this menace. This should include 

strategies for victim assistance, 

reconciliations and compensation with 

financial and material provisions made 

from proceeds of fines and property 

confiscated from the sponsors and 

perpetrators of child labour. There 

should be greater emphasis placed on 

addressing household vulnerabilities 

and poverty conditions that dispose 

families to child labour. There can never 

be the over emphasizing the fact that 

family poverty remains the root cause of 

other forms of social problems and 

criminalities involving. There is 

therefore an urgent need for primacy to 

be placed on the provision of basic needs 

of families in the areas of food, clothing, 

shelter, health care and improved 

welfare services as well as the creation 

of easy access to credit opportunities to 

diminish the vulnerabilities that 

exposure such families to poverty which 

in itself becomes the high way to child 

labour. 

 

Child labour victims should be provided 

opportunities for formal education while 

those who cannot continue their 

education can be encouraged to acquire 

skills and other capabilities to cause 

their gainful employed. This will go a 

long way in reducing their frustration 

which can force them to return to the old 

ways that had impoverished and 

dehumanized them.   

 

There is also a great need for social 

mobilization, re-socialization, re-

orientation and value re-positioning 

aimed at building the capacities of the 

children impacted by child labours, their 

parents and critical take holders about 

the need for collective efforts aimed at 

discouraging child labour in our 

societies. Beyond the moribund 

traditional approaches of continental 

boundary deterrence and protectionism 

for myopic national interests, African 

leaders must be encouraged by the 

international community, help agencies 

and concerned citizens to address the 

rising tide of child labour through a 

vigorous pursuit of poverty alleviation 

policies that can protect our children 

from all forms of abuses. 

 

 

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