Almajiri Children After Ban in the north
Before the ban, the Almajiri system of education in Northern Nigerian was supposed to take children through Islamic laws and curriculums.
These encouraged parents to release their children to the system therefore achieving two things at a time – keep them from terrorism and providing education.
Instead, the system made the children street beggars and they even admitted to fending and watching over themselves. Almajiri system exposed them to many dangers they said it was never an enjoyable system.
Northern governors’ placed a ban on the Almajiri system in April, after COVID-19 hit to help limit the spread.
The children who had travelled far to neighbouring states reunited with their parents after years of seoration. Some of them had been living in Bauchi and others in Gombe.
After returning home, UNICEF talked to some of them to know how they were doing.
In gratitude to UNICEF, these children have temporary shelter, health, nutrition, water, hygiene and sanitation services.
UNICEF’s Child Protection Specialists in the north provided the children with safe psychosocial, recreational and life skills training.
Aside from religion, parents admitted to the difficulty of raising many kids at ince as well as secuirity
Aisha Uma, a mother of one of the returned Almajiri children told UNICEF that before her kid was sent off to join the Almajiri system, he was attending a regular school.
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However, security threats and insurgency forced some of them to release their kids. Banditry in the north of Nigeria have taken the lives of several children.
What have become of the Almajiri children outside the system
The life of the Almajiri children outside the system is getting back to normal, but the insecurity is still a problem. Communities also set up monitoring systems to ensure the children don’t return to Almajiri.
The kids also have big dreams and most of them are hoping to go back to school to achieve these dreams.
Abdulsalim one of the kids told UNICEF “I want to read the Quran, go to formal school and become a businessman”.
Read full story of the life outside Almajiri on UNICEF.
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