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full screen Authorities in the Nigerian city of Kano pick up homeless children and take them to camps for “rehabilitation”. Archive image. Photo: Sunday Alamba/AP/TT
More than 5,000 homeless children are to be taken from the streets of northern Nigeria’s largest city, the authorities announce. The children, mostly boys, are seen as a security threat and a growing problem.
Nigeria’s sharia police, hisbah, have been carrying out nightly raids on several locations in the city of Kano since the beginning of the year. During the raids, many children were picked up sleeping.
The country is in the midst of a severe economic crisis, which means that more and more people are forced to fend for themselves.
– So far we have collected 300 of these boys from the streets and have brought them to camps for rehabilitation, says hisbah director general Abba Sufi to AFP.
– Their continued life on the street is a huge threat socially and in terms of security because they are potential criminal recruits, he says and calls the children “a ticking time bomb”.
In November, the governor of the state formed a committee to remove homeless children from the city. Many of them sleep in the open and do not have access to education or care. Many of the children survive by begging, selling goods at traffic lights or looking for scrap metal to sell in order to buy food.
Across Nigeria, there are 18.5 million children who do not go to school, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund Unicef. Of them, 1.9 million are in Kano State, which is 39 percent of all children there.
The Hisbah police state that there are plans to provide “psychosocial” support and counseling to the children who are picked up and that those who are interested will be allowed to go to school. Others should receive help to acquire a profession.
Previous attempts to remove homeless children from the city’s streets have failed.