CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Child labour and trafficking are essentially understood as encompassing monetary or non monetary activities which are mentally physically, morally and socially hazardous for children below 15 years of age (UNICEF, 2005). Child labour is any work that harms children or keeps them from attending school (Public Education Project 2010, p.96). “Around the world, the growing gaps between the rich and the poor in recent years have forced millions of young children out of school and into work; the source added. The International Labour Organization (2006, p.106) also defined child labour as “any work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. In its most extreme forms, child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illness and or / left to fend for themselves on the street often at a very early age.
Child trafficking, on the other hand, is the illegal movement of children, typically for the purpose of forced labour or sexual exploitation. According to wikipedia.com, child trafficking is defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring and / or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation”, though the statistics regarding the magnitude of child trafficking are difficult to obtain. Children can be sold either in kind or cash for the purpose of forced labour, sexual abuse or for armed forces a including militancy.
Understanding of child trafficking, child labour and child- marriage with respect to the media coverage of the menace in Enugu is enormous and effective. The public have acknowledged the fact that any form of child abuse is mimical and should always support mass media campaigns against maltreatment of children in the name of child labour, marriage and trafficking. Asogwa (2008,p.187) argued that child marriage in Nusukka, Abakaliki Isiala Mba Ano, Bende and Isioche (case study of South Eastern Zone) is no longer business as usual”. He observed that parents now take time to train their children/ wards in school instead of sending them for marriage, apprentice and servitudes. He attributed the stride to the media effort in the fight against child abuse in Igbo land. The fact remains that these areas sampled by the researcher remained the epicenter of one of child abuse. They were carefully selected to represent the five states of the south east.
The public perceive media coverage of child abuse as a serous issue through the defunct Ebonyi Broadcasting Service (ESBS) radio between 2000 and 2005 (Nwambe 2009, p.9). He argued that “people of Abakaliki had benefited from the sonorous programme anchored by the late Ogbonnaya Abba, adding that “children who were exposed to hazardous child labour were saved from servitudes, and converted them into education”. Nwamba also stressed that the public saw the programme as an effective one that deviated children in the society into being responsible and conscious of their rights in the society.