Child Labour Practices in a Developing Country: A Survey of Urban Communities in Awka South Local Government Area, Anambra State, South- East, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examined child labour practice which is a common phenomenon in developing countries and one of the biggest obstacles to social development. Poverty is a major factor that influences this practice in third world nations. The study is anchored on symbolic interactionist theory. The mixed methods design was adopted in this study. The study population was 106,212 which is the population of adults aged 18years and above in awka south l.g.a.a samplesize of 200 was statistically generated using taro yamane formula for determining sample size.  The multi-stage sampling procedure comprising simple random sampling and systematic sampling techniques were used in selecting respondents in the study. Questionnaire andin-depth interviews were the quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection used in the study. The statistical package for social sciences (spss) software was used to process the quantitative data while manual content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The findings indicated that there is a significant relationship between poverty and child labour in awka south l.g.a. Also, results of the study showed that family size and poor educational level of parents are determinants of this ugly practice. The paper therefore recommended the need for government and non-governmental organizations (ngos) to partner and carry out massive public enlightenment campaigns, workshops and seminars to educate and sensitize parents and care-givers on the dangers of child labour practices. Also, existing laws on child abuse should be strengthened to prevent the perpetrators of this act to desist from it since it is a form of child abuse.