COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PUNCH AND THE NATION NEWSPAPERS REPORTAGE OF CHILD LABOUR IN NIGERIA
Media reportage around the world have shown that about 60% of children are engaged in one form of labour or another. World agencies like the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated the number of working children aged between 5 and 14 years to be about 250 million in the developing countries, of which at least 120 million are working full-time, and of these, 61 percent are in Asia, 32 percent in Africa and 7 percent in Latin America. This report gives concern to the research group who launched an inquiry find out how well Nigerian media, especially the press, give prominence to this societal menace. Adopting content analysis research method, two prominent national dailies, The Punchng and The Nation newspapers, were selected. Daily editions between January 2019 and September 2019 were purposively selected, giving a total of 546 edition of the selected newspapers which were studied in terms of prominence, forms of coverage and the unit of analysis were pegged at straight news stories, features, editorials, opinions and pictures on child labour issues in Nigeria. Data gathered reveal that the two national dailies give little attention to the issues of child labour. Worst still, the press was not making any deliberate attempt to raise awareness against child labour in the country. The study was hinged on media Framing theory, and the study recommends that Nigeria media should give more space and time to the menace of child labour. It was also recommended that deliberate efforts be put into the media campaign against child labour across the country.
Keywords: bonded labour, child abuse, domestic servant, media framing, sexual exploitation
