As part of the International Center for Investigative Reporting, ICIR‘s reporting on Human Rights, across some northern states, this report looks at the increasing incidence of child abuses, molestation of children and the wrong practice of the Almajiri school system across Kano, Kaduna and Jigawa states.

MOST cities and seminaries in northern Nigeria are populated by itinerant pupils in Qur’anic schools known as Almajirai. The image of shabby-looking street children, primarily young boys between the ages of three and12, have become a blight on the Nigerian nation.

The brood roams the street clutching plastic bowls as they beg for alms from one stranger to another.

In the evenings, they return to their masters (Mallam) to remit what was made for the day and rest to continue the same routine the next day. These are Nigerian children, popularly known as Almajiri.

The uncertainty of street life has predisposed the Almajirai to delinquency for self-survival. In the urban spaces, the Almajirai mixed up with several youth demographic cohorts and delinquents such as the Yan-cirani (seasonal migrant youth), Yan Banga (criminal gangs), and Yan daba (violent youth delinquents). Some of them have resorted to theft and other crimes due to poverty.

Shettim Ahmed, an orphan from Katsina State, was brought to Kano by his mother at the age of 7, and since then, he has not gone back to see her. He has remained on the street of Kano, begging to survive.

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“I only know my mother, who is too poor to take care of me. I want to grow up studying the Holy Quran, attend a formal school and become successful. Ahmed hopes to go back to school and own a farm in the future.

“I see myself owning big businesses and providing help to younger ones in my community back in Katsina State to help discourage their involvement in crimes,” he said.

Filled with so many painful experiences, Ahmed, who is now 12 years old, has yet to interact with formal education. Instead, he is left to beg on the streets of Kano and make remittances to his teacher (Mallam) Idris at Makaranta Islamiyyan Dakata in Kano State.

“We are more than 30 in number under Mallam Idris. We would wake up as early as 5 a.m. and immediately after our prayers, pick up our plates and begin to beg. We knock door to door and return by 6 p.m. After that, we submit everything to Umaru, the most senior. He then proceeds to remit it to Mallam Idris,” Ahmed said.

That is not all. Ahmed and other students of Mallam Idris Islamic schools are known objects of modern slavery. They are used as sexual slaves and asked to work for people under Mallam Idris’s instruction without getting paid and missing their primary purpose.

“There is this woman staying at Bukavu Army barracks. I have always gone there to work for her under Mallam Idris instructions. She asks me to come every day, but whenever I go there to help her do her laundry, she used to ask me to touch her breast and also touch her private part, she used to give me food and then give me money to give to Mallam Idris, I have never seen her husband, but I believe he is not around in town,” Ahmed added.

Too scared to reveal some of the maltreatment they face as Almajiri students under Mallam Idris for fear of being tortured, Ahmed’s colleague, Ibrahim Allkasim, narrates how some are used as labourers on a farm downtown.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/torture-modern-slavery-of-almajiri-children-in-northern-nigeria/

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Why be say females no dey become almajiri too

Why do it have to be males alone

Men are endangered species. The yoke don deh choke us for throat, only God fit break am