candygosh: Natasha oberio! Coming frm u! I swear its endtime before u know ur hubbys would be here to say u are seeking attention oh!

Back to topic
Its my belief that those who engage in this child trade are mostly uneducated ignorant poverty striken people.
U see most of this people ve so many children not bred by mistake bt conceived mostly for earning a living. They sell of their kids to God knows who (ritualists, child traders,etc) without pity or fear of d unkown as long as it puts food on their table.

Its not a new trend in africa.
Btw am first to comment

carefreewannabe: I have never experienced poverty so I don't know what I would do if I did. And I don't feel like judging people in whose shoes I haven't walked, who am I?

However, it's a pity, some children have to go through this. I don't blame their parents but I'm wondering what kind of people are the ones abusing these poor children? Lord have mercy.

Tinkybabe: I blame the parents of these ones and may I say poverty is not enough excuse.

It's mind boggling how insensitive,greedy and selfish some parents are.There's this case of my aunt's help though a boy and older(16-17)who was being trained in school by my aunt .You wouldn't believe the utter rubbish his father spewed when he got wind of this.He said "I didn't send you to Lagos to get an education,I sent you there to work(as a help of course) and make money"

candygosh:

U totally get why I said they r been bred to make a living for their parents.

Do u know how abusurd it sounds to now tht their parents gave birth to them not because they want kids but because they think these children would be the source of their wealth

2buff:

You mean like Ibo people and their daughters?

Tashamania:

Neither have I experienced it. Good for us.


These are peopler like you and I who has got no conscience.
Even a 70 year old man gets moved when he sees his 5-year old housemaid's panties.
What a life.

Acidosis: How about those 'poor' parents that give birth to 12 children? 8 girls & 4 boys.
Dad is no more.
Mum a trader (sells groundnut).

carefreewannabe:

I do have a conscience so these people aren't like me. Conscience is God's voice within us!

Tinkybabe: I blame the parents of these ones and may I say poverty is not enough excuse.

It's mind boggling how insensitive,greedy and selfish some parents are.There's this case of my aunt's help though a boy and older(16-17)who was being trained in school by my aunt .You wouldn't believe the utter rubbish his father spewed when he got wind of this.He said "I didn't send you to Lagos to get an education,I sent you there to work(as a help of course) and make money"

Acidosis: How about those 'poor' parents that give birth to 12 children? 8 girls & 4 boys.
Dad is no more.
Mum a trader (sells groundnut).

Connoisseur: Nice thread and sensible posts.
I cant remember anytime in my life when we didnt have up to 4 people living with us. Like someone said(though i do not agree with his reason) in my part of the world, it is normal for parents who arent well to do to send their children to their better off relatives for them to be trained. the kids in turn help out in their host families. It is a normal phenomenom and a way of life.My dad is a product of this system thats why he followed up the tradition.

But what is not normal is where the hosts turns the help into an object to exhibit their wickedness on. In my opinion, I would put the blame on the doors of these benefactors who take other people's children (most times their blood relatives) and turn them to slaves. sometimes the helps can have very bad characters like stealing and sexual molestation, but its left for the host to take him/her back to the parents when such traits are discovered.
if not poverty no parent will want to give out their child
If not ignorance they woulda given birth to the number of kids they can comfortably train

Tashamania:

Thank you and Nice one! Especially the bolded. What ever happened to that?

Anyways, I said earlier that there are still good people who can train these kids. But, what about those kids who fall in the hands of witches, jezebels. You never can tell, even ritualists? I've heard a case of a boy who went to stay with a family and was never heard from again. Each time his parents call to talk to him, the family always gave them stories like 'he is in the room with their kids, sleeping, went to buy something and all sorts'. Until the boy's father couldn't take it nomore that he travelled to see them and it was there and then they told him his son left home 3weeks back then and never returned. He was missing. Who knows the real tory? Only God knows.

Hence the reason I say kids should stay with their parents, grow with them, do everything with them.
So that, if any of your child isn't acting up the way he supposed to, you alone would know how to deal with it. If a child was in the home of another, those families would care less because it isn't their child.

Acidosis: How about those 'poor' parents that give birth to 12 children? 8 girls & 4 boys.
Dad is no more.
Mum a trader (sells groundnut).

ItsModella: If you've ever witnessed extreme poverty, you'd understand why parents give out their children. Children are a blessing that is why every parent strives to give the best to his child even if that best is not acceptable. My dad's maternal uncle lost two of his four kids to extreme, deep rooted poverty. They could barely afford to eat once a day, let alone three times a day. Their immune system deteriorated. By the time my dad got wind of this, two of his kids were already ill and their illness had gotten to a terminal stage.

Why am I saying this? Sometimes parents see it as an opportunity to offer their children better lives, lives that they could not otherwise give them. This is not even about insensitivity and greed, it is about survival. You do all you can to make sure that your children survive. It's a risk that some of them see as worth taking. It's very easy to condemn them because we've never walked even an inch in their shoes but the reality is hard.

debosky: This is why I am strongly against people having kids without a conscious, detailed plan of how they will afford to bring up the kids.

Being poor is no excuse - if you can have sex while you are poor, you can also think about the consequences while you are poor too.

candygosh:


But I still maintain that there is no justifiable excuse for sending their child away to someone else to care for.
These people need to know that once they indulge in copulation and conceive that child as of that moment becomes their responsibilty not another man's

candygosh:
But I still maintain that there is no justifiable excuse for sending their child away to someone else to care for.
These people need to know that once they indulge in copulation and conceive that child as of that moment becomes their responsibilty not another man's

ItsModella: If you've ever witnessed extreme poverty, you'd understand why parents give out their children. Children are a blessing that is why every parent strives to give the best to his child even if that best is not acceptable. My dad's maternal uncle lost two of his four kids to extreme, deep rooted poverty. They could barely afford to eat once a day, let alone three times a day. Their immune system deteriorated. By the time my dad got wind of this, two of his kids were already ill and their illness had gotten to its terminal stage.

Why am I saying this? Sometimes parents see it as an opportunity to offer their children better lives, lives that they could not otherwise give them. This is not even about insensitivity and greed, it is about survival. You do all you can to make sure that your children survive. It's a risk that some of them see as worth taking. It's very easy to condemn them because we've never walked even an inch in their shoes but the reality is hard.

Tashamania:

I don't want to think you are in support of this.

Like I said initially, there other ways to handle such situations.
Oh Ýes! Sell the groundnuts and if it is one or two kids you are able to train in a school, no matter the kind of school, then it is worth it. You might not train the child up to a standard level but atleast you can train him/her to a level that he or she could take up little jobs that need not much experience no matter the pay. Life goes on.

I still do not support giving out kids for other people to 'train' them. You alone know how best to train your child. I'm not saying that there aren't good people out there who cant take care of other people's kids, but how many are these people?


Ask 80% of these kids what they feel about staying away from home to work as maids for these 'madams' and they will tell you, they wanna go their homes and help their mum sell the same groundnuts. So, what other 'richness' is more than a child wanting to be with his/her parents? Denying these kids paternal/maternal love at a young age coupled with the fact that one of the parent is alive, I repeat alive is an offence punishable by God and man. There is never an excuse for that just like there's no excuse to prostitution.

alutacontinua: I think the only "almost-practical" solution to this problem is to pass a bill that states: If you cannot take care of a child, don't give birth to a child

op, trust me, if you see some kind of poverty, you will be amazed!

Yet, these people are the ones who give birth to 6 children!

I know the bill thing is almost impossible but what i'm trying to say is that if there's any way to make this people realise that it's not how much, but how well...that's the only practical solution.

Some people cannot even take care of themselves, let alone, a kid. For such class of people in our country, i'll rather advise that they just keep enjoying the thing until God blesses them enough to raise a kid.

It's saddening to see how some people treat these kids, but, these kids also can behave as if there's a demon indwelling them. Another near-practical solution is to pass a bill that doesn't allow you to treat other people's kids like trash. In other words, people with such kids should take care of them like their own children.

I'll like to ask, though: @tasha, u said there are other ways to deal with the situation. Can you give practical examples? This is supposed to be a practical thread, i guess!

Tashamania:

Like I said initially, there other ways to handle such situations.
Oh Ýes! Sell the groundnuts and if it is one or two kids you are able to train in a school, no matter the kind of school, then it is worth it. You might not train the child up to a standard level but atleast you can train him/her to a level that he or she could take up little jobs that need not much experience no matter the pay. Life goes on.

biolabee: @ItsModella excellent posts!
Its easy to be an armchair critic but how many of us have even been to the SOS Village in Isolo to do our bit for the less privileged