The Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has warned that child labour remains a pervasive national crisis, revealing that up to 17 million children aged five to 17 are currently engaged in child labour across Nigeria, with 14.3 million subjected to hazardous work conditions.
Mrs. Olaolu Olaitan, Director of Inspectorate at the ministry and Chairman of the National Steering Committee for the Elimination of Child Labour, disclosed the figures on Tuesday in Ikeja during a stakeholders’ advocacy roundtable on child protection.
The event, themed “Strengthening Child Protection Responses to Exploitative Child Domestic Work,” was organised by the Devatop Centre for Africa Development with support from The Freedom Fund and funding from the U.S. Department of State.
Olaitan highlighted that child labour is most prominent in agriculture, mining, informal urban jobs, and domestic service. She singled out exploitative child domestic work as particularly dangerous due to its hidden nature behind closed doors, which complicates regulatory monitoring and leaves victims vulnerable to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.
“In many homes, you can easily identify the child domestic worker. They wear hand-me-down clothes, eat leftovers, and are excluded from normal family activities,” Olaitan said, noting that many are denied education, nutrition, and basic freedom of movement.
Addressing the root causes, Olaitan identified economic hardship and a entrenched “poverty of mindset” as primary drivers pushing families to rely on children for household income. She warned against cultural complacency, pointing out that risks facing children today are far higher than in previous generations.
She also pointed out key operational hurdles, including weak law enforcement, fragmented coordination between labor and education authorities, and hidden costs in public schools that create financial barriers for struggling families.
To tackle these challenges, Olaitan outlined the federal government’s target to reduce child labour prevalence to below 25 per cent and hazardous work to under 10 per cent by 2030, alongside raising school attendance above 90 per cent in high-burden regions.
She added that the ministry has launched a dedicated child labour website and mobile application to improve real-time case reporting and surveillance.
Olaitan called for stiffer penalties under the proposed Labour Standards Bill, expanded routine inspections, agricultural mechanization to reduce demand for child field hands, and free enrollment across the ministry’s 160 vocational training centers to support adult youth employment.
Also speaking at the forum, Miss Janet Homo, Project Lead at Devatop Centre for Africa Development, emphasized that while grassroots coordination between government agencies and civil society organizations is improving, strict enforcement of existing child protection laws remains the most critical factor in eradicating child exploitation. (NAN)
