What Teenage Girls Do For Money On Lagos Streets

Street trading and hawking, in its simplest form, is the act of selling of products along the streets or from place to place.
This is a common trend in Nigeria and a part of everyday life. On a daily basis, you see young children, both male and female between 7 and teenage years with their wares, running after moving vehicles on highways.
Snacks, drinks, household items, vegetables and fruits constitute the major goods they hawk.
While some pray for traffic jams so they sell their goods, others take advantage of bus parks, bus stops, streets, markets and any other public place with a lot of people to sell their wares.

Teenage girls hawks local gin at Ijebu Ode, Ogun State

Some of these children hawk in groups, moving from one location to the other from morning till late in the evening.

One cannot argue the fact that the reason for this is economic hardship.
People need to survive and will resort to whatever means to achieve this.

Kids sell cold drinks along the road in Ijebu Ode, Ogun State

Even people who have shops and stalls still resort to hawking. They have boys and girls who take some of the goods from the shop to the highways and streets, maybe because they do not want to lay all their eggs in one basket.
The fact is, half the children hawking on the street are not sent by their biological parents. Most times they are taken away from the village by a relative on the pretext of giving them a better life in the city. In the end, they end up on the street hawking.

Teenage girls hawking their wears along Acme road, Agidingbi, Lagos State.

The dangers of street hawking are numerous. Many children have been hit by moving vehicles, resulting in their death. Some of the girls have been raped and some have been used for ritual purposes.

Girls hawking items at Sango area of Ogun State

The Nigerian government has been fighting against this. The government in some states has declared a total ban on street trading. Agencies have been set up to catch offender. Sometimes they arrest those hawking but these hawkers have refused to be deterred. Instead, when they sight officials of these agencies, they begin to run helter skelter, looking for where to hide.

Street hawkers take a rest on a rail line in Agege area of Lagos State.

Street hawkers at Marina street, Lagos Island

Some years back, the Lagos State Government came up with the Kick Against Indiscipline, KAI, to enforce the ban on hawking on its roads. Despite this, hawking has increased rather than reduce. You still see hawkers all over the place.
Last year, the State Government of Plateau had put a ban on street hawking in Jos, the state capital.