There is a popular saying in religious circles to the effectthat love of money is the root of all evils. While this may appear like an
exaggeration, it closely contains a gem of truth especially in a country likeNigeria where men and women have almost completely lost the true value ofmoney.The number of teenagers engaged in street hawking has beenon the increase at an alarming rate in the society. It is also pertinent tonote that observation and experience have shown that the average affluentindividuals look forward to see these hawkers to buy things they want to buy orneed either internationally or as a result of lack of alternative sellers. Itis in the light of this therefore, that the writer intends to know much moreabout the hawkers and why members of the general public prefer to buy theirimmediate needs from street hawkers despite the various government effort toeradicate the practice. Although the parents and guardians of the hawkers seemto turn blind eyes and deaf ears to both its social and economic implications.
Street hawking is the offer of goods for sales by going fromhouse to house, street to street by the individuals who engage in this type oftrade.
The Causes of Street Hawking
In many societies, most of hawkers remain the female gender,as justified by the reports of Maggle Jones published in National Concord ofApril 3, 1987 titled ‘neglect of female children’. Maggie Jones who wrote herreport to World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations InternationalChildren Education Fund (UNICEF) showed that throughout the world, majority ofcultures prefers sons and that girls and women’s health often suffers as aresult.
This report indicates that Girls are victim of such becausethe fathers or husbands leave the care and upbringing of their daughters in thehands of their wives who later exposed them to street hawking which usuallysubject them to all forms of moral dangers, under the pretext that by so doing,they can satisfy their urge formaterialism.
Participants in an international workshop on Child Abuse andNeglect held in Lagos from 15th to 19th October, were unanimous that hawkinghad deprived children of the chance of being at school when they ought to andalso deny the parents and community the chances of offering support.
The manners of approach to men exhibited by the femalehawkers dictates the category of hawkers patronage they receive mostly from ‘sugardaddies’ and paedophiles who pay them thrice or more the price of the actualcost of whatever goods they pretend to be selling, just to hoodwink them forsexual gratification.
In addition, these sugar-daddies and affluent individuals buy them a lot of valuable materials or sometimes pretend to offer fake marriage promises just to have a carnal knowledge of them.
The most unfortunatestory about this class of hawkers is that they would still not go away fromthese sugar daddies and or their financial inducers even though they have beenbitterly disappointed, because of the material gains they receive.
Investigation has show that this class of hawkers are nevergood cooks, because they spend all of their days going from one street toanother all in the name of hawking.
The hawkers in this class category have also been recognizedto be prominent in becoming divorcees since they have been used to loosed lifeand world of luxury which they are likely not to get in their variousmatrimonial homes.
Another factor as one of the causes of hawking is the issueof socialization. Individual hawkers that fell into this group or class accountfor about 40 percent of the hawking population. The individual in this categoryare prompted by the wish to go.
Recommendations
Now that the two hypotheses have been tested during theperiod of survey and the positive hypothesis carried the day, the writer isconfident that what the research result has shown is exactly the true pictureof the whole story.
Moreover, I belief that if these recommendations arestrictly applied, the socio-economic consequences of hawking would turn to athing of the past. Below are few recommendations that could help:
(a) To effectively eradicate street hawking among girls,social welfare offices and departments should be established by the governmentand the private sector in order to address the social anomie that is evident.
(b) Parents must give more emphasis on moral rectitude anddiscipline of their children.
(c) Social workers should be given wider powers to enablethem arrest and prosecute any hawker found on the street trading.
(d) The state governments should urgently provide the socialworkers with motorcycles so that they will enjoy carrying out their nobleduties
(e) States governments also need to provide mobility to social welfare offices, so that the officials can effectively monitor the activities of the hawkers and other clients.
Shuaibu Lawal writes from Kano, and can be reached via [email protected] or 08037340560 (Text Only)
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
