Children in Africa have worked in farms and at home over a long history. This is not unique to Africa; large number of children have worked in agriculture and domestic situations in America, Europe and every other human society, throughout history, prior to 1950s. Scholars suggest that this work, specially in rural areas, is a form of schooling and vocational education, where children learned the arts and skills from their parents, and as adults continued to work in the same hereditary occupation. Even after retirement from formal work, Africans often revert to the skills they learnt when they were young, for example farming, for a living or enterprise. Bass claims this is particularly true in the African context. Africa is a highly diverse and culturally continent. In parts of this continent, farming societies adhere to a system of patrilineal lineages and clans. The young train with the adults. The family and kinsfolk provide a cultural routine that help children learn useful practical skills and enables these societies to provide for itself in the next generation. Historically, there were no formal schools, instead, children were informally schooled by working informally with their family and kin from a very early age. Child labor in Africa, as in other parts of the world, was also viewed as a way to instill a sense of responsibility and a way of life in children particularly in rural, subsistence agricultural communities. In rural Pare people of northern Tanzania, for example, five-year-olds would assist adults in tending crops, nine-year-olds help carry fodder for animals and responsibilities scaled with age.

In 2006, there were about 15 million child labourers younger than age 14 in Nigeria. Many of these worked in hazardous conditions and for long hours. Poverty was the main driver of child labour, and the income of these children was a major part of their impoverished families income. Vast majority of child labour in Nigeria worked in agriculture and semi-formal or informal economy. Domestic servants were the least visible form of child labour, and often sexually harassed. Amongst informal economy and public places, street vending employed 64%. Midst informal enterprises in semipublic places, children were often observed as mechanics and bus conductors.

About 6 million of Nigeria’s children do not go to school at all. In the current conditions, these children do not have the time, energy or resources to go to school.

One Cause of Child labour is poverty, if a poor family is given the necessary support, they can be able to send at least a child back to school. this is what we are concerned in, at Mother’s Heart Empowerment Foundation. So, we seek your support to empower a family and stop Child Labour.