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FeaturesZamfara Quranic School Where Teachers Send Underage Children to Work as Labourers

Zamfara Quranic School Where Teachers Send Underage Children to Work as Labourers

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February 16, (THEWILL) – This undercover investigation at Zawiyya, an Islamic Centre in Gusau, Zamfara State reveals how pupils, mostly underage, are rented to ‘Strangers’ as labourers by their teachers. The investigation also engaged a cross-section of underage children, mainly male on their plight and wellbeing within the facility.

At a glance, Zawiyya Islamic Centre situated at Kanwuri in Gusau, the Zamfara State capital, cuts the picture of a modest Qur’anic learning institution where pupils are coached to memorise the holy Quran in the shortest duration possible with long-term retention.

With solid infrastructure, including well-painted classrooms for Quranic recitations, hostels for the pupils and a small mosque for daily prayers, Zawiyya Islamic Centre looks just like any standard tertiary institution in Nigeria. Beyond this, it serves as a place where children are given out to potential labour merchants for exploitation, this reporter’s encounter with Audu Kaura, a Qur’anic teacher at the centre, has revealed.

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Wearing a long and white kaftan, Malam Audu, as he is fondly called by the pupils, guided this reporter through a mini hall behind the centre’s mosque to hear his mission.

The conversation started shortly after a 16-year-old Sadique, a Nigerian, and one of the pupils in the overcrowded learning centre accompanied the visitor to meet the Qur’anic teachers at the institution.

The mission was to get any of the Qur’anic teachers to facilitate the ‘hiring’ of some pupils for a fee. The hired pupils are to be engaged in a marathon clearing of a new apartment newly secured by this Reporter and then take them to a farmland for cultivation, which Audu was ready to do.

Within some minutes, he had assembled three of his pupils for the ‘job’. “You will follow this ‘God’s sent’ man (referring to this reporter). He will engage you for some days to clear his new apartment and do some cultivations in his farmland.” Audu orders.

After negotiating with Audu, the sum of N5,000  in cash was handed to him as fee for facilitating the services of three students, while an additional N2,000 was handed for the cost of renting farming tools as requested.

Saidu Abubakar, 13, Dauda Yakubu 24, and Nasir Ali 15 were the three pupils instructed by Audu to follow this reporter.

At a safe location far from the centre, this reporter interacted with Saidu who said he was brought from Salka in Magama local government area of Niger state by a friend. According to him, he had left his hometown without informing his parents while the Islamic Center did not bother to know his family background.

Saidu was enrolled and joined about 10, 000 learners already in the camp with little personal details about his family background. “A friend informed me about the Qur’anic center in Zamfara state, and we just boarded a vehicle and landed here.” Saidu explains. Since his arrival at the camp, the teenager has continued to be exploited by his teachers disguised to be helping him to source for income for personal upkeeps.

Each day, Saidu and his contemporaries said they often assigned by their teacher to follow individuals to farmlands or similar labour work for a fee. The advanced money collected by this teacher is handed as a way of compensation for his gesture.

“We worked for different people that want our services through any Malam (Teachers). Mostly, Mallam Audu helped sort for those who wanted our services, and we also returned part of our earnings as he had instructed.” Saidu said.

Dauda, 24 said he had been working as a labourer after completing his Quran recitation four years ago. “I decided to stay back in the Center to sort for menial jobs because there is no other place to go again.

“People are coming to the camp to seek for our ‘service’ like working on their farmland or any available jobs they might have, request  our service.”

On how he scheduled his daily activities, he said; “We wake up at 4:30 in the morning to enable us to prepare for morning prayers and then a Qur’anic recitation starts. After this, a break is given for us to solicit alms or follow people to farmland to do all kinds of soil tidying and cultivations. We then return to the Center for evening prayers and it goes on and ends at 10pm.” He explained.

The duo’s’ stories were part of windows to the extensive abusive labour against children seeking Quranic knowledge at the Zawiyya Center.

Unlike Saidu and Dauda who hailed from the same town in Nigeria, Nasir said his parents who live in the Mafara town of Zamfara state had in 2020 dropped him off at the Centre to pursue Quranic memorization. Four years on, rather than grow fast in the Qur’anic knowledge, the young Nasir has been preoccupied in begging skills to enable them fund their welfare rather than concentrate on the learning.

The next day, this reporter returned to the Centre to schedule a fresh engagement of another set of pupils from Audu. This time, the children will travel about 40 kilometres to Maru, a neighbouring town, where they are expected to work on farmland for three days in a row. Audu did not have a second thought before agreeing with the terms of engagement.

In a few minutes, he had assembled four pupils for the task. The children were much younger than the previous ones. “These are the boys and as I told you, I am their teacher and they will comply with my directives,” Audu said, in a show of authority.

The pupils brought forth were Aliyu, 13, Garba, 15 and Muhammad, 12. The teacher had a brief chat with them, apparently to discuss the task by the teacher. In their presence, the teacher demanded the sum of N5,000 as his fee and another N2,000 to rent farm ‘tools’ from this reporter which was handed to him. After the payment of the demands, a latter day was scheduled for the journey which this Reporter never returned.

According to Nicholas Ajadi, a legal practitioner with interest in labour law said Audu’s role in exploiting his pupils it is a clear violation of the country’s signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1999 and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child in 2001.

Zawiyya: Learning or Labour Camp?

Zawiyya Islamic Centre is a household word in Gusau, Zamfara State capital, founded in the 18th century. It is located within the bustling area of Kanwuri of the ancient town and known for housing the largest number of pupils seeking Quranic knowledge memorization otherwise known as Almajiri in Northern Nigeria.

Bashir Auwal (named changed), a resident of the area recounts that in December 2024, two cases of sexual abuse of these pupils were reportedly traced to the same Qur’anic center.

“These incidents of child labour are a common practice here, and there have been further reported cases of sodomy and other sexual abuses happening in the Center.” He spoke.

In May 2019, a Zamfara based lawyer, Hamza Shinkafi, told this Reporter how he facilitated the arrest of one Murtala Mode, an Islamic teacher in a similar Islamic center, after being accused of child abuse and sodomy.

The suspect was alleged to have serially raped his pupils, who were mostly from the neighboring Zamfara state, and had suffered this fate because they were under his custody for the purpose of receiving Quranic knowledge, – they had for years been turned into his sex slaves until he was apprehended.

“The pupils, aged between four and fifteen, also said the teacher also collected money from some external homosexual clients and forced the children to submit themselves to sexual acts.

“The suspect was paraded by the police but the trial was obstructed by the nature of the Islamic justice system, which requires at least four witnesses against the accused before being prosecuted.. So, he was later set free” Hamza said in an interview.

The Growing Numbers

Nearly 160 million children, are involved in child labour, making it a significant issue on a global scale while in Nigeria, over 24 million children are in child labour, according to the 2022 data from National Bureau of Statistics. Out of these, Zamfara has the highest number of over 6.4 million children in child labour.

This investigation was carried with support from Tiger Eye Foundation, Ghana and MacArthur Foundation, United States.

Tunde Omolehin is an award-winning Journalist with prose in investigative and storytelling that is connecting the dots between the under-reported communities and policymakers to ensure good governance and accountability.

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