Child Labour: The Plight of Boys and Girls Trapped in Ondo East and West LGA

The sleepy communities of Bolorunduro, Fagbo, Igushin, and Bagbe in Ondo East and the West Local Government had the largest cocoa-producing capacity in Ondo state.

The cocoa-producing communities of Bolorunduro, Fagbo, Igushin, and Bagbe in Ondo East and West Local Government Areas are facing a major challenge in accessing education due to the prevalence of child labour in the area.

A recent investigation by BusinessDay revealed that children as young as nine years old are engaged in hazardous cocoa farming activities, such as fumigation, cocoa pudding, and packing, often for minimal pay or to assist their parents.

According to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data, 52.6 percent of children in Ondo West are engaged in hazardous cocoa farming work, while 57.4 percent of those aged 5-14 in Ondo State skip school for cocoa farms.

The investigation found that while on the cocoa farms, the boys are saddled with the responsibility of fumigation, while the girls pod the cocoa and pack it out of the farms. They also confirmed that they work as labourers to earn additional money.

“I assist my father on the cocoa farms because if I don’t go with him to the farm, there is no way of feeding the family and paying my school bills,” 13-year-old Elewe Damilola, a student of Igushin Community Grammar School, told BusinessDay.

“Anytime I helped them fumigate the cocoa, I had a lot of itches on my body and a kind of peppering feeling in my eye.”

The Ondo State Child Rights Act, passed into law in 2007, protects the rights and privileges of children aged 0 to 16. The law stipulates that a child has the right to survival and development.

However, the investigation found that the law is being flouted by many cocoa farmers in the area, who engage children in hazardous work to maximise profit.

“The roads are bad, the pests are destroying our cocoa, the chemicals we use are expensive, and most of the time after harvest, moving the goods is challenging. That’s why we often engaged children in labour work to maximise profit,” Ariyo Benjamin, a cocoa farmer who rented his farm for a year, told BusinessDay.

According to Ariyo, labourers are paid N4,000 per day and N350,000 per year, unlike before when it was cheaper and the climate challenges were not as challenging as they are now.

The Alara of Igunshin land, Oba Lawrence Adelaisoye, expressed frustration with climate challenges affecting cocoa production and the huge sums of money charged by labourers, which are pushing farmers to engage children in their farms.

“Our farmers are suffering, the road to our farms has been destroyed by flood, and the poor road network has made the charges from labourers very exorbitant,” Oba Adelaisoye said.

“We send our children to school, but we don’t allow them to go to the farm on school days because the ILO Acclawa project and some NGOs were in the community to sensitise the farmers on the danger of child labour, and we have stopped doing that.”

In some schools in Ondo West and East, the Scream Club was established with the support of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Aclawa project, which supports children’s education, arts, and the media.

In Bolorunduro, Bagbe, and Igushin communities, the teachers in charge of the scream club stated that the club’s establishment had assisted the students in understanding the dangers of child labour and engaging children in hazardous work.

“Before the establishment of the streaming club, during the school period, some of them used to be absent following their parents to the farm, but the club had influenced them positively, there are still records of absentees, but it’s reducing day by day,” Adejana Isaac, a teacher at Igushin Community Grammar School, told BusinessDay.

“We need the attention of the government in the schools. The heavy rainfall has affected most of the school facilities.”