Child hustlers: They crave education, but insecurity is forcing them to work in farms

In Niger state, insecurity and poverty are denying many displaced children access to education. The situation is also forcing many of them into child labour as they struggle to salvage a seemingly bleak future.

On a cool Friday in October 2022, Patience Bala looked forlorn as she sat on one end of Central Primary School in Gwada, a town in Shiroro LGA of Niger state. Lost in their own world, her ecstatic peers were seen roaming the school — which is a make-shift camp for residents displaced by raging insecurity in communities in the LGA.

But Bala was deep in thought.

At intervals, she whined about the condition of her family. The 12-year-old is one of the estimated 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria and 244 million across the world, according to data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Going to school has been a long-time ambition for the young teenager but daily, she is rattled by the fear that her dream might never come true. Her family was among those displaced from their communities by ravaging gunmen in the state.

Faced with the harsh reality of surviving in the camp, Bala pounds yam and hawks locally-made Kunu for restaurant owners in Gwada for a paltry sum to cater for herself and her family.

“I have never been to a school. I will study well if I am enrolled in a school, but I am yet to get that opportunity. I used to pound yam for owners of restaurants,” she told TheCable. 

“I want to go to school and become a tailor after I graduate.”

Bala is one of the many displaced children in Shiroro LGA and other parts of the state who desire education. But their unpleasant condition has made their dreams a seemingly impossible ambition.

SURVIVAL FIRST

A report by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) estimated that 75 per cent of children aged 7 to 14 years in Nigeria cannot read a simple sentence or solve basic Maths.

But for many of the displaced families and children in Shiroro, Kontagora, and other affected LGAs in Niger, life goes beyond simple English and basic Maths. It’s about basic survival first; survival is a fight to finish.

Pambalo Samaila, 21, is a mother of two — Sunday, 6, and Favour, 5. Her family was among those displaced by bandits and has been living at the IDP camp in Shiroro for over three years.

Samaila said she would love her children to be in school, but all her family cares about at the moment is how to get food that will keep them alive.

Her young children also play significant roles in the family’s hunt for daily food. Whenever Samaila and her husband depart for the farm, her two children would go to nearby restaurants and markets to wash plates for people.

The mother of two said her children make between N200 to N300 daily.

“We usually leave the camp by 5 to 6 am and return by 5 pm. My children and Malika, my stepdaughter, are not going to school. We came to this IDP camp with them as babies; so, most of them grew up in the camp,” she said.

“I wish we can send them to school but we can’t afford it. We are still looking for means to feed so that we don’t starve to death. Schooling is not our priority right now.”

Asabe Gamba, 64, was also displaced by banditry in the state. As he sat at the IDP camp in  Shiroro, he watched as his grandchildren — Gideon, Enoch, and Sony — played around with reckless abandon.

“I will allow them (my grandchildren) to go to school if we can get help with their education,” Gamba said. But with no support coming his way, he is helpless.

“Where is the money to take them to school? They usually go to the farm. Even while we were in the village, they were also going to the farm,” he added.

Gamba depends on his five children to survive. Every day, the children would assist people on their farms just to feed him and other members of the family.

Gideon, 10, has big dreams. He said he is always fascinated to see his friends donning school uniforms with bags strapped to their backs. It is something he hopes to wear one day.

But since bandits took over Kaure, a village in Shiroro, and displaced his family, it has become an elusive dream.

“I used to have friends who go to school when we were in the village. Yes, I would like to go to school,” he said while playing with Enoch, 6, and Sony, 8.

Like Gamba, Dauda Madami, 50, depends on his grandchildren — Theresa Amos, 9, and Beauty Anthony, 7 — to survive. At their age, Madami’s grandchildren should be in school. But the reverse is the case.

“All they do is go to the market to work for people. That’s all they do. When they come back to the camp in the evening, they will just eat and sleep. Their employers usually give them about N300,” Madami said.

“I’m not happy that they are not going to school. I used to be a farmer, I also sell agrochemicals but I’m currently jobless. We don’t have farms to work on anymore and my shop was destroyed during the attack.”

Yakubu, 4, and Na’Allah 6, have a similar pathetic story. Although they have not been to school before, life was much easier when the farming business of Ayuba Wada, their father, was booming. Since bandits struck and displaced them, they have been living from hand to mouth.

Yakubu and Na’Allah have been following their father to farms where they work as labourers. They also work at restaurants.

INSECURITY DRIVING FAMILIES INTO POVERTY — CHILDREN INTO HARD LABOUR

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), about 15 million children under the age of 14 are engaged in child labour in Nigeria. The organisation added that “half (of) this population (are) being exploited as workers in hazardous situations”.

The US Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILA) also said “children in Nigeria are subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including commercial sexual exploitation and are used in armed conflict as well as quarrying granite and artisanal mining”.

The ballooning insecurity in Niger and other parts of the country is driving more people into poverty. An analysis by TheCable earlier showed that 4,545 people were killed by non-state actors, while 4,611 others were kidnapped in 2022.

“We have been suffering from insecurity for the past 6 years in Niger. I was a farmer and I used to sell torchlight and motorcycle parts. I also worked as a mechanic while I was in the village but now the business is gone. Everything is gone to banditry,” Wada told TheCable.

In its 2022 data, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor.

The situation has made child labour an option to survive for children of school age — particularly those displaced by insurgency and banditry.

Niger, Osun and Ondo are among the states in the country where child labour practices are prevalent, according to the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA).

The association said many children across communities in these states “work for long hours in dangerous and unhealthy environments, carrying too much responsibility for their age. They work with little food, small pay, no education and no medical care, thereby establishing a cycle of child rights violations”.

This is happening despite various laws which prohibit child labour and guarantee access to quality education for children in the country. The Child Rights Act of 2003, for instance, provides for free, compulsory and universal primary education for children.

It also prohibits child marriage; child abduction and forced exploitative hard labour involving children; dealing in children for purpose of begging, hawking, prostitution or for unlawful immoral purposes as well as any form of abuse and maltreatment against children.

Niger is among the states that have domesticated the act. The Universal Basic Education (UBEC) Act of 2004 also provides for compulsory, free universal basic education for all children of primary and junior secondary school age.

In spite of this, however, many displaced children lack assess to basic education in Niger while girls are at risk of early marriage.

“Our children don’t go to school. Most of them engage in farming. The girls also farm and later get married,” Mandami said.

In May 2014, the federal government launched the safe school initiative following the abduction of school girls in Chibok, Borno state. The initiative, among others, was to provide a conducive environment for schoolchildren across the country.

Years after, however, the initiative has suffered several setbacks as many students are still at risk of abduction.

THE WAY FORWARD

Education stakeholders and policy experts said the government must initiate measures to ensure children displaced by banditry and other forms of insurgency in Niger have access to basic education.

Hassan Taiwo Soweto, the national coordinator for Education Rights Campaign (ERC), said such measures must incorporate financial and other forms of support for the displaced children.

“There is a need for a comprehensive programme by the government to ensure that the education and other related needs of these children are met,” Soweto said.

“This means building schools in the IDP camps would not be enough. The housing, feeding and other related needs of the children will have to be taken care of for them to be well educated.

“Such programme would, of course, require good funding, which the government can better afford if it cuts its excessive cost of maintaining public office.”

Also speaking, Ambrose Igboke, a policy analyst, said the government should train “nomadic teachers” who can visit the various IDP camps in the state to teach the displaced children.

“The solution we need is to train a group of itinerant, nomadic teachers that will move from camp to camp,” he said. 

“Those days when we were little, we had what was called the teachers’ training college. I don’t think it exists anymore; they were lower than colleges of education. They issue Trained Teachers Certificates (TTC).

“We can also deploy students to do teaching practices in IDP camps. In Niger state, for example, we have the Federal College of Education (FEC) Kotangora, Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUTMINNA), and Federal Poly, Bida.

“We can begin to harness these institutional potentials in education in Niger state and begin to deploy students who want to do their internships, university students who do education courses, according to the proximity of the IDP camps to their institutions.

“Imagine if you do that, all year around, you will have teachers to teach children in IDP camps and just do a prototype for these teachers because they are students. They will teach basics. In that way, we can provide a solution to the seemingly hopeless situation.”

On his part, Oriyomi Ogunwale, the team lead at EduPlanner, a non-government organisation, said a holistic approach and political will is needed to tackle the issue of education for displaced children in Niger and other states in the north. 

“When insecurity exists, even if the schools are well equipped, kids cannot go there. So, it requires a holistic approach to address these issues. Niger and other states should improve school safety infrastructures,” he said.  

“I think it comes back to education funding. If the government is concerned about addressing these issues, it will invest more in the education sector. There is a need for the state ministry of education to prioritise child enrolment and ensure that school-age children are attending schools on a regular basis.

“This will require a concerted effort from the state government but first there must be that political will to prioritise education in the state.” 

NIGER GOVERNMENT REACTS

When contacted, Idris Kolo, public relations officer for the Niger State Universal Basic Education Board (NUSUBEB), said the state government is “so concerned about the situation”.

Kolo said efforts are in place to ensure displaced children in the state have access to education.

“Yes, we have IDP camps in Niger state because of the banditry issue and there are make-shift schools in most of these camps. But then, the state government in its own magnanimity is looking at ways to commence learning on the radio to complement teaching for the out-school-children,” he said.

“When that begins, we will visit the various IDP camps and distribute transistor radios to them so that they can be following the learning process. That is the stage we are at now and I want to assure you that we are going to start that in no distant time because the government is so concerned about that.

“Also, because those displaced are scattered across various communities, we have informed the education secretary to construct make-shift schools in government-approved IDP camps, so that teachers will be posted to those places and teach these children irrespective of their grades.

“I know it is not going to be easy as usual but the idea is to keep the children busy and ensure they are not left behind.”

On children who hawk and engage in other forms of child labour to survive, Kolo said: “It is an emerging problem and the government is doing everything possible to ensure the displaced children get succour and have a better life.”

“For those that are hawking, the government is doing its best to give them the needed support including teaching them entrepreneurial skills.”

On its part, the state ministry of education, said “innovative approaches” are being rolled out to ensure “every child in the state has access to basic and quality learning irrespective of location, gender and family background”.

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This report was supported by YouthHub Africa in collaboration with Malala Fund and RiseUp.