ADEOLA OTEMADE reports the agony of children hawking nose masks on the streets in order to make ends meet and support their families.
IN the ideal world, children are dependants and parents are supposed to provide for their needs. Whatever the needs may be, every parent especially fathers, are looked up to for the provision of those needs. However, the tides have changed and it is not an enviable world.
Today, there are absentee fathers and most families have been affected economically. All over the world children are found on the streets rubbing shoulders with adults alike in order to eke out a living to support their families and for those who have been severed from their families, they make a living to support themselves.
Before the coming of coronavirus, children who trod the streets on a daily basis looking for survival mostly were begging or doing odd jobs. With coronavirus they have become vendors of face masks, the most popular personal item in the world in the last two months. It is not what they love to do, but they have to do it because the current global trend has pushed them further down the abyss of poverty and it has not been a pleasant experience.
Sad stories
Sesan Sikiru is one of those children who now make a living selling face masks. At a popular shopping mall in Ibadan, he is one of the children who run after people alighting from okada, running after cars that make their turns into the mall with face masks of different colors, mostly badly sewn, in their hands flying in the air.
During the encounter with Sunday Tribune, Sesan, with scars all over his face, looked tired and frustrated. His story is pathetic.
He has lost his mother and his father’s whereabouts is unknown to him. He currently lives with his grandmother, who due to old age also needs support.
“My mother is dead; my father and I lived in Abeokuta before we relocated to Ibadan. My father took me to Bode area of Ibadan where I attended a school and I currently stay with his mother, my grandma. I haven’t seen my father this year, and I don’t even know where he is.
“As for what I sell, I haven’t sold anything since morning. I collected these face masks from a woman who also sells around here. She gives me a dozen to sell for N700. If I sell one dozen my gain is N500, but there are days I don’t sell everything, and there are days I sell everything I collect from her.
“Before coronavirus started I was begging. Whenever there is nothing for me to eat, I beg on the streets in order for me to have something to eat,” he said.
Sesan is not the only child on this beat. Praise Oladeji also treads the same path. He is just 10 years old and the first born of the family. He was not selling anything before the coming of coronavirus but since the financial crunch that accompanied the global pandemic he has to find something to do to augment his family’s income.
“My father is a tailor and he makes the face masks,” he began his story in a soft tone. Continuing he said: “I do come here from Ogunpa area of Ibadan every day to sell face masks ever since the pandemic started. I sell the face masks for N100 each, but today I have not sold anything, and there are times I sell everything I bring from home.
“When there was no coronavirus I wasn’t selling anything, but the pandemic has affected our family such that my father had to ask me to come and sell face masks so as to feed the family. This coronavirus is not good at all and I’m not happy with the way I am selling on the street.”
Distance is not often a barrier as the case is with 18-year-old Olalekan Samad Adeoye, the second child in a family of six, who stays at Total Garden, Ibadan, but comes to Ring Road end of the city every day to sell face masks which goes for N100 each. Before coronavirus, he was hawking puff-puff in the morning and fruits in the evening.
“My mother is a tailor and my father is a welder, he said, adding that “I come from Total Garden to sell face masks at Ring Road every day. There are no sales today, but I have sold about N1,100 worth of nose masks and there are times we make more sales in a day.
“We are not pleased with the way we hawk on the streets, but should one be at home and be insulted by one’s parents? When there is nothing to eat, and if one does not hawk in a day, one would not be able to eat. That’s why I have to hawk and when one sells, it is better than stealing. Also being here on the streets has prevented us from engaging in fights at home or stealing and engaging in all sorts of vices.”
Olalekan does not have kind words for the government for not taking care of its citizens, especially young people.
“Look at those other children standing around in the sun, begging people to buy face masks from them; little children that are meant to be in school. Our government has failed us and we the younger generations are the ones suffering for their wicked deeds,” he said.
Muideen Ganiu also sells face masks. His mum is physically handicapped, while the father has travelled to Lagos to look for work in a bid to support his mother and be able to support the family.
“I already sold nose covers worth N1800 today, and it is from the profit I make that we use to feed at home. I am 12 years old and I just started selling things due to this pandemic to be able to support my family,” he said.
For Opeyemi Moruf and his mum, it is a case of division of labour. He and his mum come to the same area everyday to eke a living. His mother sells sachet (pure) water while he sells face masks.
“I started hawking due to COVID-19 pandemic and I have not sold anything today. I am 14 years of age and it is from the sales I make and that which my mother makes that we use to feed daily. Tomorrow we must go again otherwise we would go hungry,” he said.
Seeing children running up and down on the street in order to survive with all the dangers involved is ordinarily not a sight to cherish.
A concerned citizen, Michael Amos who spoke on the issue told Sunday Tribune: “in all fairness, it is not right that these little children should be selling on the street, but what I want you to know is that in this our country, our government has released poverty into the society. That’s why we are experiencing all these. There was a boy I saw, he was selling face masks and he could not be more than seven years old.
“I asked him what he came to do and he said he came to sell face masks; I shook my head. In a country where there are leaders, is the government not seeing these children? The children that are meant to be in school… we know there is coronavirus, but still these ones are meant to be with their parents and not on the street.”
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