Perceived Influence of Street Hawking on Hawkers’ Development in Calabar Municipality, Cross River State, Calabar, Nigeria

This study examined the perceived influence of street hawking on hawkers’ development in Calabar Municipality, Cross River State, Calabar, Nigeria. The purpose of the study was to ascertain the influence of street hawking on antisocial behavioural of hawking children as well as on girl-child sexual abuse in Calabar Municipality of Cross River State. Thus, two objectives and two null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. This study adopted Social Provision Theory by Jane Addams (1949) as its theoretical framework. The research design adopted for this study was descriptive survey. The sample of the study constituted 400 hawkers drawn across the 10 council wards in Calabar Municipality. Accidental sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was closed-ended interview questions. In some cases where the hawkers were found in group, focused group interview was adopted but where only one hawker was seen, the hawker was interviewed personally. In analyzing the data obtained from the respondents t-test was used test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The finding indicated that there is significant influence of street hawking on antisocial behaviour of children in Calabar Municipality. Result also showed that street hawking has significant influence on girl child sexual abuse in Calabar Municipality. Base on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the government of Cross River State should carry out an enlightenment campaign through radio, television, bill post in collaboration with some religious institutions on the negative consequences of street hawking in order to minimize the moral hazards inherent in it. Also, as a way of curbing the menace of street hawking, the government should take urgent steps in making active policies and laws that can help stop the prevalence of street hawking by child care givers. Parents and caregivers should be enlightened on the negative effect of street hawking on children; the girl-child in particular.