Abstract

This study investigated the effect of hawking on primary school children’s classroom behaviour in Limbe I Municipality in the Fako Division. This research was motivated by the need to underline the impact of hawking on primary school children.

A survey design employing a qualitative approach was used. In this research, 16 pupils of classes 5 and 6 were sampled for the study from four different schools. The instrument for data collection was an interview guide. The data were analyzed following essentially the thematic approach whereby pupils’ ideas were grouped under umbrella terms, keywords or themes.

From both the literature and empirical research findings, it was obvious that hawking leads to a lot problem that affects child schooling and leads to under-achievement. These problems are late coming, tiredness, absenteeism which have a direct impact on child schooling and self-esteem.

It was generally perceived by the pupils these problems disturb them from following up lesson, make them come late or to be absent in class and they end-up copying notes instead of reading or revising, tiredness makes them sleep in class, exposed them to punishment and they frequently ask for permission to go out as they fell asleep.

They feel inferior to other pupils who are not exposed to much hardship. All these as they emphasized lead to under-achievement in school and low self-esteem. It was then recommended that parents should be sensitized to the adverse effect of hawking on children’s schooling, that school authorities should sensitize parents during PTA meetings, that government should adopt deterrent measures in relation to hawking.

Much more essential, hawking could be beneficial to develop the practical intelligence of the child. In this line, as it the case in traditional Africa where children usually accompany their parents in their daily duty, the child shall not go far and shall remain within the sight of the parents.

In fact, if we have to follow the traditional child labor as practiced in traditional Africa, the child that hawk shall have a parent not far doing similar business. And even if this aspect of hawking as practiced in traditional Africa shall be tolerated, it shall be only during holidays and shall be relaxed.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Forms of work that contribute to children’s development and that help child to acquire skills and prepare to be productive of society during their adult life are not considered child labor. After considerable debate, a consensus is gradually emerging that ‘child work’ or ‘children’s work’ is seen as a general term covering the entire spectrum of work and related tasks performed by children, and ‘child labor’ as a subset of children’s work that is injurious to children and that should be targeted for elimination.

Cameroon is facing some of the worst human rights issues with regard to child labor. According to ILO, there were about 602000 child laborers in Child labor in Cameroon in 2000. Of this number, 40% were females, 7% were less than 12 years and 60% dropped out of primary school.

Little is documented about child labor in Cameroon and therefore many people are not aware of the ever-increasing violations of children’s rights, [Cameroon National Institute of Statistics, MRC Macro.2004 Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). Calverton, Maryland USA: NIS and ORC Macro; 2004].

The right of children to education is not fully protected in Cameroon. Cameroon has a good primary and secondary education system which has provided significant improvements in educational opportunities for children such as the opportunity to be learned.

However, the Cameroonian education system still faces challenges in providing quality education to all children. Regional, wealth, and gender disparities take a toll on children and put vulnerable groups at risk for not attending school, and being a further disadvantage in life opportunities.

Living in rural areas doubles the risk of not attending school and poor children are five times more likely to be out of school than children from rich households. This is because some parents are having financial difficulties in affording school materials for their children and prefer to labour them to hawk or sell for their educational wellbeing. These education challenges pose a threat to the economic future and viability of Cameroon and deprive children of their right to quality education.

The Cameroon National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms which is the main enforcement mechanism of violations of children’s rights is impeded in its duty in this respective. This is due to two reasons. Firstly, the National Commission for Human rights and Freedoms is not independent of the government. This is evident for the fact that the government appoints its key personnel and funds the commission.

With this scenario, it becomes difficult for the commission to write ill about the government. Serious violations of children’s rights are therefore not reported. Secondly, decisions of the commission relating to human rights violations are not binding. As such, it does not deter violation of children’s rights.

In Cameroon, the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) and the African Children’s Charter (hereafter referred to as ACRWC) were recognized, accepted, and ratified as part of its laws ensuring the protection of children’s rights and welfare. As per article 45 of the Constitution of Cameroon, the ratified treaties and international agreements take precedence over national laws.

Cameroon is seen to be a monist state in terms of the status of international instruments duly ratified by the government. However, with regards to the application of ratified treaties, Cameroon is dualist as such treaties only take effect through domestication by national law.

Cameroon also has various legislative acts and decrees protecting children’s rights and welfare such as (Section 1) of Law No. 2005/015 of 29 December 2005. Children should not be victims of torture. That is why Law No. 97/009 of 10 January 1997 states that the practice of torture in Cameroon has to be stopped at all costs and sanctions meted out.

Section 7 of Law No. 98/004 of 14 April 1998 stipulates that everyone is entitled to an education regardless of sex, religion, age, political opinion, and social origin. Orphans can be adopted and guided by foster parents, foster homes, or orphanages with good intention to take care of the children as per Law No. 84/04 of July 1983. However, the government has created several ministerial departments responsible for the rights of children with respect to Decree No. 2004/320 of 8 December 2004.

Hawking is an aspect of Child labor which according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) refers to negative or undesirable forms of economic activity performed by children under the age of 15 years.

The culture of child labor is still very much present in most parts of the Third World countries. Children below working age are seen to either feign for the family through hawking in Cameroon, the CRC and the African Children’s Charter (hereafter referred to as ACRWC) were recognized, accepted, and ratified as part of its laws ensuring the protection of children’s rights and welfare.

As per article 45 of the Constitution of Cameroon, the ratified treaties and international agreements take precedence over national laws. Cameroon is seen to be a monist state in terms of the status of international instruments duly ratified by the government. However, with regards to the application of ratified treaties, Cameroon is dualist as such treaties only take effect through domestication by national law.

Child labor is a major public health problem in Cameroon. The main determinants are poverty, parental level of education, migration, HIV infection, place of residence, Socio-cultural factors, family size, and the flawed registration system. The main forms of child labor include family work, self-employment, wage employment (in plantations, industries, farms, etc.), child placement, child trafficking, and prostitution.

The major effects are seen in the low school enrollment rates, a high dropout from schools, poor growth and development, high adult unemployment, and a persistent cycle of poverty. The worst forms of child labor in Cameroon which constitute serious violations of human rights include child trafficking and prostitution.

Nationally, the Cameroon Government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child along with other countries (all except Somalia and the United States). This Convention is the only international human rights treaty that expressly gives non-governmental organizations (NGOs) the right in monitoring its implementation (under Article 45a of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, A/RES/44/25, dated 20 November 1989).

Despite this ratification, the situation of child labor has not changed in Cameroon. Nevertheless, Cameroon is in the process of developing country-specific strategies to combat child labor. The Director of the Central African Sub-regional Office of the International Labor Organization (ILO), Alice Sorgho Ouedraogo invited the Cameroon Prime Minister, Ephraim Inoni to preside over the launching ceremony of the World report on child labor that took place on May 4, 2006. [Pan African News Agency Daily Newswire, 16 July 2006].

The International Labour Organization launched the world report on child labor in Brazilia, Brazil on May 4, 2006. The report was also launched in the capitals of 20 countries in the world at the same time, including Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. According to the ILO Central African boss, the report contains information that will contribute greatly to the fight against child labour and trafficking in the world.

The UN Convention Against Transnational organized crime (2000) defined street hawking as follows; the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, of abuse of power, giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation.

exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, and the removal of organs.

Internationally, a step had been taken through the West Cocoa/Agriculture Project (WACAP) to reduce child labour in five West African countries, namely Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Nigeria

There is mounting evidence that hawking can contribute to the socialization and promotion of children’s classroom behaviors. Over the last two decades, structural features of schools, such as large size, economic disadvantage among the student body, social problems, and risky neighborhood conditions flanking school grounds, have been cited as variables associated with increased levels of student aggression Colder, Mott, Flay, &Levy,2000; Howley, Strange, & Bickel, 2000; Rutter, 1983).

The essence of good classroom teaching is the ability to create an environment that first can mobilize the learner to pursue the curriculum and then can maintain that mobilization, while effectively facilitating learning.

The process is meant not only to teach academics but to turn out good citizens. While many terms are used, this societal aim requires that a fundamental focus of school improvement be on facilitating positive social and emotional development/learning.

Behavior problems clearly get in the way of all these structural features. Misbehavior disrupts in some forms, such as bullying and intimidating others, it is hurtful. And, observing such behavior may disinhibit others. Because of this, discipline and classroom management are daily topics at every school.

According to Adelman & Taylor, (2006) responding to behavior problems and promoting social and emotional learning are related and are embedded into the six arenas we frame to encompass the content of student/learning supports.

How these concerns are addressed is critical to the type of school and classroom climate that emerges and to student engagement and re-engagement in classroom learning. As such, children involved with hawking need to be fully integrated into school improvement efforts.

Conceptual Background

In Cameroon, the phenomenon of children selling along the streets and highways of the capital city is currently greater than before, especially during holiday periods. Although some of these children are at times mistaken for wolves in sheep clothes, most of them are actually out to make brisk money which will enable them to go back to school upon resumption of classes.

However, parents and guidance turn to overlook the risk some of these children face when treading on the highway. Besides being attacked by thieves, these children are exposed to car accidents as they usually rush near any car which stops by to brandish their goods to passengers.

UNICEF (2007) has identified poverty, large family size, and rapid urbanization among others as the major factor why many Nigerian females are vulnerable to trafficking. Parents with large families are often prone to those traffickers’ deceit in giving away some of their females to city residents or even strangers promising a better life for them.

Trafficking deprives children (victim) the privilege to exercise their wide range of rights, including the right to belong and identify, the right to freedom, education among others ANPPCAN (2010).

Street hawking by children especially has been a common thing in most parts of the developing and undeveloped world. It is not anything good. It does not only end on children’s hawking but there are causes and effects on the society at large. Irrespective of the causes and effects of children’s hawking on the streets of many parts of the world, possible remedies/solutions can be applied by the governments, parents, and sponsors to solve the challenging issue.

On many occasions, children who were being sent out for hawking business asked themselves questions why they were busy carrying trays from street to street to make money for their madams while their other mates were busy going to schools.

Most trafficked and poor children who fall victim to this inhuman and intimidating condition are always busy preparing for their hawking business while the other privileged children of their mate are seen rushing to schools so that they will not be punished by their teachers. What a pitiable condition.

The most heartbreaking of it is that the madam to these trafficked children hardly buys good clothes for these children for the hard work they do. Early in the morning even in cold weather conditions, these children are seen on the streets wandering like sheep without a shepherd.

Contextual Background

Overview of Childhood in an African Cultural Setting

Parental values organize daily parenting routines for child and family life (Harkness & Super, 1996). Parents’ cultural belief systems channel elements of the larger culture to children. Accordingly, childhood in Africa is best visualized within an African theory of the universe, which envisions a circular path to human ontogenesis in three phases, identifiable more by cultural imperatives than by the biological markers that trigger them (Nsamenang,  2008).

Social selfhood is an experiential reality, the physically existing human being that begins with conception and connects the two metaphysical phases of spiritual and ancestral selfhood  (Nsamenang, 1992b,  2005). The existential self or social selfhood, the primary subject content of developmental science, develops through seven stages—namely, pre-birth/neonatal, social priming, social apprenticing, social entrée, social internment, adulthood, and old age/death (Nsamenang,  1992b, pp. 144–148).

The ontogenetic phases as Nsamenang put it covers social apprenticing, social entrée, and the early period of social internment. These phases correspond to the conventional developmental stages from the toddler years to pubescence.

An African theory draws from life journeys in African cultural settings (Serpell, 1993) to recognize the transformation of the human newborn from a biological entity into a viable cultural agent of a particular community en route to adulthood.

As children develop, they gradually and systematically enter into and assume different levels of personhood, identity, and being (Nsamenang, 2005). Children are not born with the knowledge and cognitive skills with which to make sense of and to engage the world; they learn or grow into them as they develop (Nsamenang, 2004). Based on perceived child states and

Milestones of human ontogenesis, Africans assign sequential cultural tasks to the stages of development they recognize. In this way, they organize child development as a sociogenic process, with cultural beliefs and practices that guide systematic socialization, education, and the expectations required for each ontogenetic stage.

Accordingly, we can interpret child development as the acquisition and growth of competencies in the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional domains and the moral maturity required to competently engage in the world, implying the family, community, and the society at large.

Statement of Problem

The development of children in the four domains – social, physical, cognitive, and emotional – is the concern and interest of each family or parent and this is being supported, sustained, extended, and enhanced primarily through activities that promote purposeful teaching and learning. While the parents provide the conditions and the materials that influence how the child learns the teacher facilitates learning through teaching.

Where the family fails to meet up the basic socio-economic demands the child becomes an agent of financial support to the family. This phenomenon is rampant in towns, with Limbe as a case study whereby children engage in hawking as a means of livelihood.

The notorious areas in which they are found selling are Half Mile, Church Street, Mile 4 car park, Down Beach, and Limbe market. Some of the items being sold are groundnuts, fruits, eggs, soft drinks, writing, and even building materials, sometimes with threats never to return home until all their articles are sold and most often they do not exhaust their articles, but they exhaust themselves retiring too late at home.

This affects their sleep pattern and as such, they get up too late and tired with little or no interest and motivation to attend school. Even when they are intimidated or forced to attend, they lack concentration due to sleeplessness and fatigue which ultimately affect their ability to copy notes and do their assignments regularly and correctly. They are often distracted by their peers who are absent from school because of hawking, thinking that they are instead on the losing side.

Considering that most of these children involved in hawking are from families with low socioeconomic status, most of them lack basic school materials such as the uniform, books writing materials, and a school bag. Most often a majority of them are sent home for nonpayment of the PTA levy which dampens their motivation, self-esteem and affects their attendance and performance.

The increased population of children in the hawking business in the streets, quarters, and market in Limbe, coupled with low school attendance rate and performance is of concern to the researcher. The prime intent of the research is to investigate the effects of hawking on primary school children’s classroom behavior in Limbe 1 Municipality.

Objectives of the Study.

The main objective of this study is to find out the effects of hawking on pupil’s classroom behavior.

Specific objectives

This study was specifically aimed at:

1. Finding out the extent to which a pupil’s lateness affects classroom behavior.
2. Exploring the extent to which absence affect pupil’s classroom behavior
3. Finding out the extent to which fatigue affects pupil’s classroom behavior.
4. Finding out the extent to which poverty affects classroom behavior.

Further Readings

The Effects of Street Hawking On Adolescent’s Classroom Behaviour In The Limbe I Municipality