Islamic Police In Nigeria Are Evacuating ‘Street’ Children And Sending Them To Rehabilitation Camps

They plan to evacuate over 5,000 street children from the streets of Nigeria's largest city, Kano.

An Islamic-based police force in Nigeria plans to evacuate more than 5,000 children living on the streets over concerns that they pose a “security threat.”

Known as The Hisbah and based in northern Nigeria, they have started bringing in over 5,000 street children into a camp for rehabilitation. CBS News reported that they launched this operation through night raids where many of these children sleep, including in motor parks and markets. They have also swept the street corners of the regional capital and the nation’s largest city of Kano, to evacuate these unhoused minors, primarily comprised of boys.

The security threat stems from their potential indoctrination into a criminal lifestyle. The Hisbah’s director-general, Abba Sufi, called the children a “ticking time bomb” that required an immediate solution.

“We have so far mopped up 300 of these boys from the streets and taken them into a camp provided for their rehabilitation,” explained Sufi to AFP. “Their continued living on the streets is a huge social and security threat because they are potential criminal recruits… They are a ticking time bomb that needs to be urgently defused with tact and care.”

The children hail from the city and other states, with most from broken homes, given the capital’s high divorce rate. These boys fend for themselves without access to care or an education. They roam the streets and scavenge for items to sell in an effort to secure food.

Others come to Kano to learn how to read the Quran at informal Islamic religious schools called almajiri. However, their schooling does not stop the scavenging and begging that has become commonplace.

The crisis has also worsened due to nationwide inflation, which rose to a staggering 34.6% in November. Nigeria aims to remedy this specific effect through this measure.

Once rounded up, the children travel to a rehabilitation camp to receive “psychosocial” support and counseling. Sufi claims that those who show interest in academics will enroll in school. The others can gain seed money to start a new trade. Children from surrounding states will be repatriated back to their native areas after the rehabilitation is completed.

This plan will differ from previous approaches to reduce the number of street children. In their prior plan, conducted from 2017 to 2018, the Hisbah returned children to their parents in outside states. However, this strategy proved unsustainable and unsuccessful, with the minors ultimately going back to the streets.

Sufi added, “We want to avoid a repeat of the past experience, which is why we changed approach by camping the children and rehabilitating them before sending them back into the society.”

Nigeria itself has 18.5 million children not in school, with 1.9 million living in Kano, according to a UNICEF survey. With these numbers in mind, the Hisbah’s plan of action toward street children remains a top priority.