Child Labour Practice and the Legal Perspectives: The Nigerian Public Sector Corruption as Antecedent

Abstract

Children are born to this world to enjoy parental care till the age of maturity when they are able to decide rationally on their choices in life. Therefore, the purpose of this study investigates the legal perspective against Child labour, one of the factors that prevents children’s access to education attainment that left them with no option than to serve under the forced labour. It also examines the effect of the prevailing corrupt political system in Nigeria as one of the major factors, it also explores global and regional legal frameworks preventing child labour and measures for eradication. The study is library research that makes use of international and domestic law doctrines.  The future of the young segment of the society has no direction under corrupt leadership that may have devoured the national resources before the children come of age and consequently leave the society with no option than to be heavily involved in odd jobs to survive. This paper examines and exposes the practical implication of the role the poor governance, under a weak leadership play in thwarting the future of intelligent, ambitious and potentially reliable children due to poor education and failure of social policy implementation. The theory is based on the fact that the work is exploitative in nature, while the parents of the children in child labour lacks the true information as to the nature of the work. The theory established that the worst form of poverty is the driven force that pushed the children to child labour and must be critically addressed by the policymakers to phase out child labour phenomenon. Research found that majority of the factors that responsible for the engagement of the children in child labour are endlessly found within the government’s faulty policy perspectives. All the studied factors are within the possible control of the concerned countries’ leadership, even when parents living in abject poverty agreed to off children for child labour to sustain the family.