Gender And Social Issues In Teenage Hawking: Implications on Educational Development in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Abstract

Before now, there has been a failed attempt by Ebonyi State authorities to place a ban on the increasing menace of street hawking, as a strategy to eradicate the abuse of school age children. Amidst the involvement of a visibly large teenage population in this socio-economic nuisance as observed across the State Capital with its attendant consequences; this research therefore sort-out to examine gender and social issues associated with teenage hawking, and its implications on educational development in the affected State. The paper particularly addressed three objectives relating to; gender/social abuses, hawking rationale and educational attainment. The implications of these issues on educational development were also examined. The study was a cross-sectional descriptive survey that collected data from 273 randomly sampled teenage hawkers from a cross-section of the State’s Capital, Abakaliki, using a researcher developed Teenage Hawkers’ Questionnaire (THQ), accompanied by interviews and observations. Descriptive statistics - simple frequencies and percentages were applied in the data analysis to answer research questions, while inferential statistics - Chi square test of independence was used to test the lone research hypothesis. Descriptive content analysis was also be used to analyze views expressed during interviews and issues observed during data collection. The findings showed that; bullying, sexual harassment from both males and females, rape and kidnapping were common gender and social abuses experienced by teenage hawkers; with a significant gender disparity amongst the victims (x2(4, N=497) = 20.55, p = 0.00), where females teenage hawkers were more exposed to gender/social abuses from the public during hawking than were males (73% to 27%). Poverty of the masses was identified as the main rationale for teenage hawking. In terms of educational attainment, the hawkers were mostly primary and secondary school dropouts and graduates, with a very tiny percentage (4.25%) schooling and hawking. The general implication of this on the educational development of the State was therefore negative. The main recommendation of the study focused on the need for; the State government to more assertive in action by banning street hawking amongst teenagers especially during schooling time/days/periods and a mass campaign to be launched on the education of the girl-child and street hawkers of school going age in the State.