Abstract
This study focused on street hawking among children in Ibadan, Oyo State,
Nigeria. Specifically it identified the causes of children’s involvement in
street hawking and perceived effects of street hawking on the children
involved. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to
guide the study. The study was a descriptive survey. Area of the study was
Ibadan. Population was made up of all children both male and female
involved in street hawking in Ibadan. Purposive stratified sampling and
multi-stage procedures were used to select 150 respondents from the
population. Questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed
using mean and t-test at 0.05 level of significance. Major findings are eight
causes of street hawking among children, including poor family living
conditions, irregular family income, peer parental co-influence, large family
size, family cultural heritage and high inflation and cost of living. Other
findings area 22 perceived effects of street hawking on children. These
include behavior deviance, sexual exploitation, emotional stress/trauma,
child mortality rise, coupled with school dropout, among otherst. There
exists a significant relationship between the response of male and female on
the causes and perceived effects of street hawking by children in Ibadan.This
study recommends massive awareness campaign to discourage street
hawking by children and strict enforcement of the child’s right laws in
Nigeria.