Whenever Maryam hawks sachet water on the streets of Dundaye, Sokoto state, passers-by would whisper in empathy over the innocent-looking child, believed to be too young for such hectic hawking. Maryam would place a small cooler containing sachet water on her head, holding it firmly and shouting at the top of her voice. In her native Hausa dialect, “Buy cold water,” the little girl will shout intermittently, as she tried to attract patronage under the sweltering sun. Within a short period, the container of sachet water on her head was emptied by passers-by, who were not necessarily thirsty but patronising her out of pity.
Little Maryam seemed too immature to answer a lot questions from this reporter – too little to even know her surname, let alone her age – or perhaps for lack of formal education.
On a sunny Monday afternoon when children of school age were expected to be in school, Maryam was instead already out on the streets of Dundaye, plying her trade. Seeing little Maryam would often evoke a lot of emotions from discerning minds who at times wonder aloud, why such a minor should be on the streets, hawking under the scorching sun.
Shafahatu Abubakar was one of such sympathisers, who could not control her emotions when she set her eyes on the girl who was practically sweating while counting the little money she had made for the day. “Oh my God!” said the young lady with a frown on her face, hands raised above head, as she thumped a leg on the ground angrily. “Who are the Godforsaken parents that asked this little girl to be hawking around?” she yelled at no one in particular.
Alas! Maryam is not the only out-of-school child in Sokoto state and Nigeria as a whole. According to the United Nation International Children Emergency Fund; Nigeria still has 10.5 million out-of-school children — the world’s highest number. Sixty per cent of those children are in northern Nigeria. About 60 per cent of out-of-school children are girls. Many of those who do enroll drop out early.
Nigeria’s rapid population growth has been contributing to the current economic pressure on the country’s infrastructure, resources and even public services, UNICEF asserts, noting that children under 15 years of age account for 45 percent of the 171 million of Nigeria’s population.
Forcefully betrothed
At Gidan Yunfa – a village in Sokoto central – what may have been responsible for the travails being witnessed by little Maryam was unfolded to this reporter. There, Hadiza Bello, aged 7, roamed the streets on bare foot, and just retuning from her morning hawking with little time to play (like other children would) before embarking on another round of sachet water hawking in the evening.
“I hawk sachet water in the morning and in the afternoon that is what I do. I don’t go to school,” Hadiza said.
Hadiza said she would love to be in school but her hope of schooling is quite blurry because her parents would not allow her to go, even if she has the opportunity. When asked whether she had ever been to school, she said: “I was once in school but my mother stopped me from going there.”
As Hadiza spoke with this reporter, she looked left and right intermittently and wore an uncomfortable look that suggested she was afraid. Her playmates who seemed to have an idea of what was wrong would later reveal that her parents must not see her talking to an adult male. It turns out little Hadiza would be married off in a few years. When one of her neighbours mentioned that Hadiza had already been betrothed and would get married very soon, the little girl was silent and soon after, left the interview scene.
When this reporter met Hadiza’s mother, Ajia Inno, she evaded questions that probed betrothing the little girl without her consent. However, she revealed what according to her was the real reason her only daughter was not in school.
Her words: “I stopped her schooling so that she can hawk sachets of water and make some money for me; after all, she had not been serious with her studies.”
A woman should not be too schooled, said her mother, noting that only Hadiza’s husband – when she gets fully married – has the rights to send her to school, if he so wishes.
To Mallam Tukur Abubakar, an Islamic cleric in Sokoto, Hadiza’s mother was right. Corroborating, Abubakar said: “In most cases, the highest a girl child goes in education is primary school. Immediately after that, she is considered ripe enough for marriage. It is now left for her husband to decide whether she should continue her education or not.”
Hadiza’s parents risk being convicted to a fine of N500, 000, imprisonment for a term of five years or to both fine and imprisonment according to section 23 of the Child Rights Acts, for betrothing the little girl without her consent. However, Sokoto state is yet to domesticate the act since it was passed into law in 2003. Section 22 (1) of the same act prohibits child betrothal, stating that: “No parent, guardian or any other person shall betroth a child to any person.”
However, Sokoto is not the only state delaying the domestication of the Child Rights Act. UNICEF listed states that are yet to domesticate the act as Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Enugu, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi , Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara states respectively.
According to Aisha Abdullahi, an activist, “what is stopping its domestication in Sokoto is the fear that if Prophet Muhammad did not prescribe a particular age that a girl should be married and if the ‘Ulamas’ (group of Islamic scholars) have not sat down to set a particular age for marriage, why should a group of people sit and decide when a Muslim man should marry off his daughter?”
Tears of little Iyya
Like Maryam, Iyya Shamsu, 8, embraces the stings of Sokoto’s hellish sun every day. Iyya – at her tender age – is subjected to a daily hustle that even an adult would struggle to bear. She hawks what is called ‘tantu’, which in Hausa language translates as “fried coconut” on the streets.
‘Tantu’, as it is called in the local parlance, is not as lucrative as sachet water, thus Iyya earns little with much efforts. At 3:42 pm sometime in August, the child hawker had not made enough sales, commensurate with her efforts on the streets that day and she was about to give up.
When asked whether she has ever been to school, she said: “No! I don’t go to school, I am not meant to go to school. I only go to Islamiyya where I read the Quran every day.” If Iyya has any opportunity to go to school, she told this reporter that she would really be willing to go. But her parents are a big hindrance to achieving that, she said.
Largely, at Gida Yunfa – where she hails from – like many places in Sokoto, girls of school age are not allowed to go to school. Fear of being wayward, this reporter gathered, is the major reason parents would not want their girls to go to school in the state. Mallam Abubakar, the district head of the village was evasive while speaking with this reporter. Abubakar however stressed that though he has no female children but if he does have one, he would not allow her to go to school.
No flair for education
Hadiza Lawal has a different story to tell, hers is a story of sorrow amidst the fear for schooling. She is 24-years-old now and has four children. At 16, she was married off and began her marital sojourn without any basic education.
Apparently, literacy is not her thing for she can neither read nor write. Matters of education get her easily upset she revealed, and demonstrated this while conversing with this reporter. She feels schooling is too difficult for someone like her, saying, “I don’t think I have the brain to go to school.” According to her, she has never attended any formal school, except for ‘Islamiyya’, a local Islamic school.
When asked if it was her choice not to go to school, she said, “what can a person do when they want something but don’t know how go about it?”
A reasonable number of married girls in Sokoto are like Hadiza, denied some of their fundamental human rights, such as: right to education, freedom from violence, reproductive rights, access to reproductive and sexual health care, freedom of movement, and the right to consensual marriage, due to the scourge of child marriages in the state, findings by this reporter have revealed.
According to UNICEF “As the most populous country in the [African] region, Nigeria has the highest number of child brides. An estimated 22 million child brides live in Nigeria, which accounts for 40 percent of all child brides in the region.”
Zainab Yunusa, co-convener of the Almajiri Initiative, a child right NGO in Sokoto expressed dissatisfaction over the views of parents in the state on girl child education, noting that female education is a germane phenomenon that should attract the attention of the state government.
“Once a girl is educated, she will inculcate the knowledge into her children; she is going to nurture a lot of people; her interaction in the society will differ from those that are not educated,” she said.
“One disappointing thing is that those girls that are not going to school also lack morals. They don’t have respect; when they talk, they will be calling their mothers by name. But I have never seen any educated girl calling her mother by name. And the problem is: our people see the educated girl as being wayward,” she said.
Waywardness has often been attributed as a reason for keeping the girl child out of school, but enlightened minds are more likely to make informed decisions that ensure their future is not put at risk. As Zainab pointed out, uneducated girls routinely demonstrate ‘disrespect and wayward attitude’, which in the first place was the reason for not sending them to school. This purpose appears to have been defeated.
IBRAHIM ADEYEMI
