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How Sports can Rehabilitate Nigerian-child-Prisoners
Many residents in Lagos eke their living from hawking and this act is not restricted to adults. Children are often engaged by adults to sell on the streets and this expose them to various crimes as well as harmful consequences including ending up in prisons and police jail according to the Human Rights Watch Report 2016. From available data by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about 1million children are in prisons around the world.
There are both international and local laws that require that imprisonment of children be in “conformity with the law and can be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period”. These include:
There are the UN Convention on Rights of the Child (CRC 1989) which defines a child as “every human being below the age of 18 years”.
African Human Rights Charter (Article 2)
African Charter on Rights of Women and Children
Child Acts right (CRA 2003): Adopted by Nigeria in response to domesticating the UN Convention on the Rights of the child. Only 23 out of 36 states have passed the law.
Lagos State Law on Street Hawking
In July 2016, the Lagos state government resuscitated the Lagos State Street Trading and Illegal Market Prohibition Law 2003 with Ban on Street Hawking and making it an offence for traders to hawk on the streets.
It imposes a fine of N90, 000 to both the hawker and the offender.
Child Hawkers:
As early as 7:00am, at the busy Oshodi rail-line, 12 year old Ayo Joseph (not real names) was arranging some cold bottles of soft drinks and water into a small bowl in readiness for the day’s hawking exercise .
Ayo looks tired with weary eyes but he just must sell to help his mother.
“We all have to eat and survive in Lagos”, says Ayo.
However, just as he was setting out, the men of the task force arrived and Ayo was one of those picked up and thrown into a waiting green vehicle.
When asked how much he makes as profit daily, “ I make between N1, 000 and N2, 000 daily depending on sales”.
During the recent visit of the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Funmilayo Atilade to the Badagry Prison, a 14-year-old boy, Samuel (pseudo name) said that he was picked up by a task force for hawking beef sausage, popularly known as Gala.
“I am from the East. I came to stay with my distant relative. I was made to start hawking.
“My people do not know that I am here,” he said, adding: “I want to go back home”.


