Toiling for Survival: Children in Urban Informal Sector in Africa (2025)

In this report, working children in the informal sector in Africa spoke. They described the deplorable working conditions as cumbersome, tiring, scary, risky and boring. Our in-depth research showed that children in the informal economic sector in urban centres of Africa are burdened with tasks much heavier than their delicate shoulders could carry. As one of the working children in Nigeria told us, his back hurts all the time and he wonders for how long he could continue working this way. Many children are engaged in backbreaking work for long hours, often without a break and for low wages. These violations of children’s rights happen in plain sight in the streets, homes and various corners of African cities and towns. It calls for urgent action to rescue and protect them as well as address the root causes that push them into hazardous and exploitative labour in this largely unregulated sector.