Children on the streets, our future woes

BEYOND the delight of tears, beyond the passionate intensity of countless orgasms, the future of our children, of our own mortality and ancestry needs our constant vigilance and careful nurturing. No seed grows into harvest joys without the planter’s diligent labour of love. Until we come to this understanding, as parents, as family, as community, we will forever stand condemned by the anguish in the eyes and the voices of our children, forever guilty of the nurturing of prospective souls into the devouring jaws of the streets.

In many of the crimes committed in the society today, the under aged children are taking the lead. This is seriously alarming, and if nothing is done, and urgently too, our society will never know peace until we pay the full price for the children we have abandoned, until we learn to do the right thing to these children abandoned to the streets. And beyond the children, our society must also learn to do the right thing to the class of socially and economically disadvantaged people produced by various spheres of the society. This is not a prophecy of doom, it emanates from the way the menace of children abandonment to the streets is escalating.  The issue of street children has become one of the most widely discussed social tragedies, a cankerworm that refuses to die. People are witnessing a deluge of talk about the plight of these children from newspaper articles to radio talk-shows, television documentaries and elegant academic discussions.

There are also countless NGOs supposedly working in the interest of street children. Well-attended workshops and conferences have been convened on the subject. Even government claims to be doing its very best to address the problem. Yet, in spite of all these well-publicised efforts, the problem seems to be growing big and bigger.  Look at the Almajiri system in the society today, the National Council for the Welfare of Destitute (NCWD) puts the current population of the Almajirai at about seven million. Imagine seven million potential journalists, judges, accountants, engineers wasting away. The system as it is presently being practised has outlived its usefulness. The system lacks good teachers and a fairly healthy environment. Yet, the society and the parents have abdicated their obligations of properly caring for and educating their children. These bowl-carrying children have now become so ubiquitous in almost all the nooks and crannies of the Northern states, such that we would almost be made to believe that that is where Almighty God wants them to be.

But the society should remember that God has given us these children in trust, and given us guides on how to bring them up and will surely ask us on the Day of Judgment what we have done in the discharge of what He entrusted to us. As rightly observed by Professor Idris Abdulqadir, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence between the parents, authorities and the society at large. For the parents, the system provides an outlet, and a drainage for the excess children at home, for the authorities, it is a relief that they do not have to budget for about seven million Almajiri children’s education and welfare. As for the elite, they care less as long as their own children are not involved. But let us remember this adage a mad dog does not hesitate to bite anybody including the owner of the dog.

One of the children who is also an Almajiri, Halilu Bello in Rijiyar Zaki shared his experience: “Honestly, I do suffer very well, everyday. I go from house to house to fetch water, doing wanki and wanke-wanke (washing clothes  and plates).” When asked whether he knew his parents, the boy said: “Honestly, I know my father, I have seen him once. But right now, I don’t know where he is.” Asked about his mother, he said, “I don’t know my mother, and I have not seen her before.”.  It is commendable that most parents create a little time out of their tight schedule to see that their children are given the best parental supervision and guidance. But it is not enough as more efforts need to be intensified in order to ensure that children abandonment to the streets become a thing of the past.

To this end, the media must prioritise this issue in their reportage to ensure that child menace is curbed. They  also disseminate information and put in place programmes that will create mental pictures in the minds of parents on how a child should be taken care of. I am not leaving the government out: it must ensure that proper sanctions are put in place for the offenders whose children are found on the streets. This will go a long way in curbing the menace.

• Msughter is of the Bayero University, Kano.