Life is not easy and three brothers from Etena-fou know this very well. When other children are playing on the weekends or enjoying time with their friends, these three are making sure that they work for the Sunday toonai and their school fees.

They are nine-year-old Simi Mose, 10-year-old TJ Paseka, and 12-year-old Isaako Mose who are sometimes accompanied by their 14-year-old cousin to sell close to 100 coconuts.

"We get a little over $100 from a day's selling and we give it to our parents to help with whatever is needed at home and it's mostly either to'onai on Sunday or to help with our school fees," Isaako told this newspaper on Saturday.

"We like doing something like this that can help with our parents and we like seeing tourists and we also learn English from them."

The harsh reality of families having to go out of their way to put food on the table and to meet the ever-growing cost of living is evident and the story of these children is one of many.

When Samoa Observer stopped to interview the children, five customers pulled over and bought close to 20 coconuts from the child vendors in over an hour.

Some wearing no tee-shirts and the condition of the clothes on their bodies is enough to paint a picture of what the situation in their home is.

According to them, they usually finish selling their coconuts around 4 pm on Saturdays and when their relatives supply them with more coconuts on Saturday evening or Sunday, they will sell coconuts again on Sundays after church.

"We're not allowed to sell coconuts during church so we wait until church finishes then we sell coconuts," Simi said.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted in 2022 of Samoan child vendors shows a 27 per cent increase in their numbers with more of them selling at a very young age compared to 2015.  

Data from a 2022 Rapid Assessment Survey of Child Vendors was discussed as part of a fourth consultative process at the Taumeasina Island Resort at the time.

Associate Professor Tuiloma Susana Tauaa and Dr Mercy Ah-Siu Maliko of the National University of Samoa (NUS) at the time presented the findings of the survey, which was a follow-up to a 2015 pilot study of children working on the streets of Apia.

Tuiloma said that child vendors do not exist in a vacuum as “they are participants of the wider informal economy of Samoa”. 

"The biggest economy of Samoa is our subsistence economies," she told the conference.

According to Tuiloma, based on the data from the last survey conducted in 2015, there has been a 27 per cent increase in child vendors in Samoa.

She said the other alarming factor that came out from this year’s survey was that the child vendors are getting “younger and younger”.

"In 2015 there was denial of child vendors and poverty, now we can see clearly that it is spreading," the academic said.