From classroom to construction site: The child labour journey from Benin Republic to Lagos - Punch Newspapers

Ibukun working on a site at Ilasamaja, Lagos. Photos: Justice Okamgba

JUSTICE OKAMGBA follows 10-year-old Ojo Ibukun and explores how poverty, migration, and informal apprenticeship can take children from neigbouring Republic of Benin to Lagos construction sites, where work replaces school and protection becomes harder to enforce In Nigeria, one of Africa’s biggest economies, childhood can begin with a workday. While many children his age are getting ready for school, 10-year-old Ibukun Oluwa is already at an unfinished building in Ilasamaja, a low-income neighbourhood in Lagos, pushing a shovel through a mixture of sand and cement. The shovel is almost as tall as he is. Ibukun crossed into Lagos to learn tiling but found himself carrying cement, mixing mortar and sleeping on cardboard at an unfinished building—raising difficult questions about poverty, migration, informal apprenticeship and child labour. On a sunny morning in May 2026, he leans forward, gripping the shovel with both hands as he struggles to break through the heavy mixture on the concrete floor. Around him are bare walls, and unfinished rooms, a common sight across Lagos. Ibukun is an apprentice working under a tiler, Kilamuwaye Alexandre, who brought him from Ifangni in southeastern Benin to Lagos. The two are from the same town, and Alexandre says most of their jobs are in Lagos. When the work takes them across the border, they move between Nigeria and Benin through established routes. As citizens of ECOWAS member states, Beninese nationals can enter Nigeria without a visa for visits of up to 90 days through official entry points under the regional free-movement protocol. However, the rules governing longer stays and residence are more complicated. For Ibukun, however, the journey to Lagos has led not to a classroom but to a construction site. “Young man, why are you not in school? What are you doing here?” our correspondent, who lives close to the site, asked him. “I don’t go to school,” he replied in pidgin English. When the working day ends, he finds time to play with other kids who have returned from school. As night falls, Ibukun goes back to the site. The unfinished building is both his workplace and his temporary home. Inside an empty room on the ground floor, a piece of cardboard lies on the cement floor. There is no mattress, mosquito net, or electricity. “I sleep here,” the kid told this reporter, pointing to a corner of the room. He lies on the cardboard at night and wakes up to another day of work. The routine starts the next morning again. His story shows how poverty, migration, and informal apprenticeships can push children into work in a city where construction sites are a common sight. From Benin Republic to Lagos ​Alexandre said Ibukun had expressed a desire to become a tiler instead of continuing with school, and that his parents agreed to let him accompany him to Lagos. “The lad prefers to become a tiler to going to school,” he told The PUNCH. ​Alexandre described the arrangement as an apprenticeship that was influenced by the family’s circumstances rather than a deliberate decision to keep the boy out of school. ​“So instead of allowing the boy to stay home and become a nuisance, the parents agreed to work with me to learn the tiling profession,” he said. He acknowledged that Ibukun was too young to be working on a construction site. That admission captures one of the difficult questions surrounding informal apprenticeship in Nigeria and across West Africa, when does learning a trade become child labour? ​Apprenticeship has a long history in Nigeria, including the Igbo apprenticeship system, commonly known as Igba-Boi. The model, which developed in south-eastern Nigeria, has been widely studied as a form of informal education in which young people learn trades and business skills by working closely with experienced masters. Through observation and practical work, apprentices gradually acquire the skills and knowledge needed to earn a living and, in many cases, eventually establish their own businesses. ​The system has been credited with helping build businesses and create employment, particularly in commercial centres such as Onitsha. It has also attracted international interest as an indigenous model of entrepreneurship and skills development. ​But apprenticeship becomes more complicated when the learner is a child. There is a clear difference between acquiring a trade and being removed from school to perform physically demanding work. When a child is exposed to hazardous conditions, works for long periods, or lives at the workplace, what is described as apprenticeship can begin to resemble child labour. ​The International Labour Organization defines child labour in terms of work that is harmful to children’s well-being and development, interferes with education, or involves children who are too young to perform it. Not every task performed by a child automatically amounts to child labour, making the circumstances in which the work occurs important. ​Ibukun’s circumstances raise precisely that question. He is not simply observing an experienced tiler. He carries materials, mixes cement and works on an active construction site. The building where he is learning a trade is also where he sleeps. ​Another tiler working at one of the sites, Koku Tosin, is from Togo and has spent more than a decade working in Lagos confirmed the development. ​He said Ibukun was not an isolated case. “The boy is too small but hard-working,” Tosin told our reporter. ​“I have seen many cases like this. Small boys from Benin Republic come to Lagos to do these jobs. Their way of thinking is different. Economic necessity shapes it.” ​Tosin’s account points to a wider pattern of economic migration between Lagos and neighbouring countries. Lagos attracts workers with its large market, busy construction industry and concentration of businesses. ​For people from communities close to Nigeria’s borders, travelling to Lagos for work can be part of an established pattern rather than a one-off journey. But when children are part of that movement, the same routes that provide adults with economic opportunities can also expose them to informal work and exploitation. Children working on a palm kernel farm in Itapaji, Ikole LG, Ekiti State. Photo: Elliot Ovadje ​ECOWAS has recognised free movement as a central part of regional integration since adopting its Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Residence and Establishment in 1979. The protocol was designed to allow citizens of member states to move across the region without visas for short visits, although implementation and longer-term residence rules have evolved. ​That regional mobility is important for trade and livelihoods. It can also create gaps in child protection when children move with adults into informal work arrangements that are difficult for authorities to monitor.See more Punch stories on Google.Add Punch on Google ​The same regional system that allows adults to cross borders in search of opportunity can also make it easier for a child to move from one country into a workplace where his age, education, and welfare may not receive adequate scrutiny. The construction economy ​A few houses away from the first building where the tilers had worked, another residential project was nearing completion. The Founder of Afatech Mechanic, Jamiu Ibrahim, said he first noticed Ibukun at the site. “This one is too small for this type of job,” the engineer told The PUNCH. “He should be in school.” ​When the first project ended, the tilers moved to another building nearby, and Ibukun went with his boss. The new site was another unfinished residential building, where workers moved from room to room preparing floors and laying tiles. ​This is common in Lagos, a state of more than 20 million people under Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. As the city grows, construction projects are spread across established neighbourhoods and new communities. Masons, electricians, carpenters, painters and tilers often move from one project to another. ​At the Ilasamaja site, the line is difficult to ignore. Ibukun works on an active construction site, carries materials, and works alongside adults. The risk goes beyond possible injuries. A child who spends the day working and the night sleeping at a construction site is also missing out on school, recreation, and the stability of a proper home. The borders The movement is not limited to the Seme border along the Lagos-Badagry road, which Ibukun and his boss used to travel to Lagos. ​Olabisi Akande, a vulcaniser from the Republic of Benin who has lived in Lagos for more than 15 years, told The PUNCH that travelling between Nigeria and Benin was relatively easy. ​Akande said he usually travelled through Idiroko in Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State, along Nigeria’s western border with Benin. ​“I usually pass through Idiroko in Ipokia Local Government Area in Ogun State. It’s the same when I return. I travel once every two weeks from Lagos to my village, where I have a building project going on. I don’t like using the Badagry-Seme border axis,” said Akande, a married father of two. ​For workers such as Akande, travelling between the two countries has become part of everyday life. He can work in Lagos while keeping his family and other interests in Benin. ​For children, however, the situation can be different. Once they enter an informal workplace, there may be little paperwork or monitoring to show where they came from, who brought them, or what work they are doing. This is where the movement of people can intersect with child labour. Migration does not cause child labour, but children who travel with adults or are brought into informal jobs can be harder to identify and protect. A national problem Ibukun’s story is part of a much larger national picture. Nigeria’s 2022 National Child Labour Survey, conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the ILO and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, estimated that 24.7 million children aged between five and 17 were engaged in child labour. The survey found that 14.39 million were involved in hazardous work. Construction was among the hazardous industries identified in the survey, while hazardous work also includes activities involving long hours, dangerous tools, unhealthy environments, and other conditions that can threaten children’s health and development. NACA urges journalists to deepen HIV awareness Obasanjo: Corruption, illicit wealth hinder development 7Up, Apapa-Iganmu revive neglected PHC The problem is also closely connected to household economic conditions. The ILO has identified poverty and limited livelihood opportunities as major factors behind child labour in Nigeria. Its work in the country has increasingly focused not only on removing children from harmful work but also on addressing the economic pressures that push households towards relying on children’s labour. Experts say simply taking a child away from a workplace does not necessarily remove the economic pressure that brought the child there. If a family cannot afford school-related costs, lacks stable income or sees apprenticeship as the more practical route into employment, the child may eventually return to work. In Ibukun’s case, Alexandre’s explanation points to that tension. The boy wanted to learn a trade, he said, while his parents agreed to the arrangement. But a child’s preference for a trade does not erase the responsibility to ensure that the work does not deprive him of education or expose him to harmful conditions. The Nigerian law Nigeria has several legal protections intended to prevent children from being exploited at work. The Child Rights Act, enacted in 2003, prohibits practices including the use of children for exploitative labour and activities that deprive them of the opportunity to attend school. It also prohibits the use of children in hazardous work and provides broader protections against trafficking, forced labour and other forms of exploitation. The Labour Act also places restrictions on the employment of children and young persons. Its provisions distinguish between different forms and conditions of work rather than establishing one simple age at which every form of employment becomes lawful. Under Section 59, children under 15 are restricted from industrial work except in specified educational or training circumstances, while children under 16 face additional restrictions, including work underground, machine work and certain other activities. The law also prohibits employment that is injurious to health or dangerous. The ILO’s current country profile notes that Nigeria’s legal framework does not clearly establish one general minimum age for admission to work, while the Labour Act contains specific thresholds for different categories of work and apprenticeship. It lists 12 as the statutory minimum age for admission to apprenticeship under Article 49 of the Labour Act, while also noting proposed changes in the revised Labour Standards Bill. Calling Ibukun an apprentice does not by itself settle whether his work is lawful. The nature of the work, his age, the conditions under which he performs it, the hours involved, and whether the arrangement interferes with his education all matter. In his case, the construction site is not merely a training environment. It is where he spends his working day. It is also where he sleeps. Government’s efforts Nigeria has not ignored the problem, as it has developed national policies and action plans aimed at eliminating child labour, with support from the ILO and other development partners. The National Steering Committee on the Elimination of Child Labour provides a platform for government institutions, workers’ and employers’ organisations, civil society and development partners to coordinate the national response. In 2021, Nigeria validated a National Policy on the Elimination of Child Labour and a National Action Plan covering 2021–2025. As that framework approached the end of its implementation period, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, working with the ILO and the National Steering Committee, began reviewing the policy and developing a new five-year action plan. The review process included a strategic development workshop held in Abuja from April 27 to 30, 2026, bringing together government, workers’ and employers’ organisations and other stakeholders. The process culminated on June 2 and 3, when the National Steering Committee formally validated Nigeria’s third National Child Labour Policy and the National Action Plan for 2026–2030. The new framework is intended to strengthen institutions, reduce hazardous child labour and create conditions that allow children to remain in school and move into decent work when they reach adulthood. The validation was jointly convened by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and the ILO, with support from the ECOWAS Commission. Speaking during the validation meeting, ILO Country Director for Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone and Liaison Office for ECOWAS, Dr Vanessa Phala, said the policy needed to translate into improvements in children’s lives. “Child labour is a violation of fundamental human rights and compromises children’s future,” Phala said. She stressed that implementation would require sustained financing, effective monitoring and collaboration among government institutions, workers’ and employers’ organisations, civil society, communities and the private sector. Nigeria can adopt policies and laws, but enforcement becomes harder when children work in dispersed informal businesses, construction sites, private homes, farms and markets where inspectors may not routinely reach. The informal nature of the economy also means that the people responsible for a child’s welfare may not always be the same people responsible for the workplace. A child may arrive with a parent, relative or master. Once at the workplace, the child can become part of an informal chain of labour in which responsibility is difficult to trace. Beyond Nigeria Nigeria’s struggle is part of a wider problem concentrated in some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities. The ILO and UNICEF’s 2024 global estimates, released in 2025, found that nearly 138 million children were engaged in child labour worldwide, including about 54 million in hazardous work. The figures showed progress from 2020, with more than 22 million fewer children in child labour, but the world still missed its target of eliminating child labour by 2025. Sub-Saharan Africa, where Nigeria belongs, carries the largest burden, as about 87 million children in the region are in child labour, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the global total. Although the prevalence rate fell to about 22 per cent, the number of children affected remained broadly stagnant amid population growth, conflict, poverty and stretched social protection systems. The region’s economic realities make the challenge particularly persistent. Agriculture remains the largest sector for child labour globally, accounting for 61 per cent of cases, followed by services at 27 per cent and industry at 13 per cent. Services include domestic work and selling goods in markets, while industry includes mining and manufacturing. ​ In Nigeria, the sectors differ from community to community. Children work on farms and in markets, while others are found in workshops, domestic employment, construction and other informal activities. ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo said the latest global figures showed that progress was possible but warned that much more needed to be done. “The findings of our report offer hope and show that progress is possible. Children belong in school, not in work,” Houngbo said. He linked the fight against child labour to the economic conditions facing parents, arguing that families need access to decent work so they can keep their children in school rather than rely on their labour. That connection is particularly relevant to Nigeria because removing a child from work without strengthening the household’s ability to survive can leave the underlying problem untouched. Solutions The global recommendations are familiar but difficult to implement at scale. The ILO and UNICEF have called for stronger social protection, universal access to quality education, stronger child protection systems and decent work for adults. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said legal safeguards, social protection, investment in education and better employment opportunities for adults were essential to sustaining progress. “The world has made significant progress in reducing the number of children forced into labour. Yet far too many children continue to toil in mines, factories or fields, often doing hazardous work to survive,” Russell said. For Lagos, the response also requires attention to the informal economy through which many migrant workers find employment. That means labour inspections cannot focus only on large companies and formal workplaces. Construction sites, workshops, domestic workplaces and other small businesses can be just as important to the fight against child labour. Cross-border workers are not inherently a child protection problem. Regional mobility is an established part of West Africa’s economic system and remains important to trade, employment and family livelihoods. The challenge is to ensure that the movement of people does not make children invisible, experts say. That requires cooperation between labour authorities, border officials, child protection agencies and communities in countries of origin and destination. It also requires clearer information for families about what constitutes lawful apprenticeship, what work children can perform and where the protections of the law begin and end. Justice Okamgba Justice has over three years experience spanning digital and print media. At The PUNCH, he currently covers the automobile sector with special interest in features and industry analysis.

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