Abubakar* remembers the night a lot changed. “I was sleeping under a corridor when somebody touched me,” the teenager recalled. “They didn’t tell me anything. They just said I should follow.”
Before he could understand what was happening, he was in the back of a van with dozens of other underage boys like him—tired, confused, and half-awake.
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At the temporary camp where they were taken after last year’s raid by the religious police, Hisbah, he slept in a vast hall on thin mattresses lined from wall to wall. The mats stretched across the entire floor, giving little space between one child and the next.
“We prayed when they said we should pray, we ate when they said we should eat. Nobody asked where I came from. Nobody said anything,” he recalled.
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Abubakar said he ended up spending about three days in the camp after which he was released. Officials of the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) later met Abubakar and are helping with his rehabilitation.
Abubakar’s voice is a composite—constructed with guidance from psychologists and shaped by years of living on the streets with other boys.
Although Abubakar’s experience occurred last year and such raids by Hisbah have been ongoing for several years, the Kano State Government decided to formalise the process earlier this year.
Launched with fanfare and framed as a protective measure, the programme is now suspended, and the children it targeted are caught between competing narratives of rescue, rights, and responsibility.
Kano, the commercial hub of northern Nigeria, is at the centre of the country’s almajiri and street-children crisis. Almajiri are children whose relatives send them to live with Islamic teachers, where they learn about the Quran. Although a common practice in Northern Nigeria, many of the children end up on the streets where they beg or do menial labour. Estimates of Almajiri boys in Kano State range from 300,000 to more than 600,000. UNICEF places the number of out-of-school children in Kano at 989,000—most of them boys, the same group that fills informal Quranic schools and street-begging ranks.
Kano State has long been the heart of the Almajiri crisis.
It was against this backdrop that the state government, under Governor Abba Yusuf, authorised a new Hisbah-led operation in early 2025.
The Deputy Commander-General of the Hisbah Board, Mujahideen Abubakar, announced that children found sleeping under bridges, near gutters, or in uncompleted buildings would be taken to the Hajj Camp, medically screened, fed, and provided with both religious and formal education.
“We have decided to keep them at the Hajj Camp and give them proper education,” he said, promising that some could be supported “up to tertiary level.”
Hisbah Board is Kano State’s Islamic moral police, established in 2003 to support the enforcement of Sharia-based social order. It operates under the state government and works alongside conventional security and social agencies. Hisbah officers typically engage in activities such as mediating family disputes, curbing public immorality, resolving community disagreements, managing lost and found persons, and promoting religious and social discipline.
After the Hisbah Board launched the street-children rescue operation, the state set up a multi-agency committee to guide and monitor the programme. The committee included the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), and several state ministries.
In one major sweep, between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., Hisbah officers combed the city, and more than 200 children were taken to the Hisbah rehabilitation centre, Hajj Camp.
Abdullahi Shehu, Kano State coordinator of the NHRC and a member of the committee, said that the Hajj Camp was inspected before the children were taken there. He insisted that conditions at the camp met basic standards.
“They were given mattresses and blankets, fed three times a day and screened by health personnel. Children with contagious diseases were quarantined and treated, and those with severe skin conditions were shaved and medicated,” he said.
He said their rights were not violated and their conditions were improved.
“Compared to sleeping by the roadside or hotels in the middle of the night, their pattern of life was improved. To us, their rights have been realised, not violated,” he said.
For Mr Shehu, the rescue was justified under Nigerian law. He pointed to the Constitution, the Child Rights Act and Kano’s Child Protection Law, which all place responsibility on the state to intervene when parents fail to care for their children.
“Leaving children on the street is a violation of their rights. The government does not need parental consent to rescue them if it is in the child’s best interest,” he said.
But even as the programme appeared to offer street children a lifeline, operational cracks were beginning to show.
A Programme Without a Comprehensive Plan
To implement the rescue, the government placed operational responsibility on Hisbah. The corps is widely known for enforcing public morality, mediating community disputes and supporting Sharia-inspired social order—not running complex child-protection systems.
For Hisbah officers like Yusuf Abdullahi, who participated in street raids around Sabon Gari and other areas, the assignment felt like a humanitarian duty.
“When you see them sleeping near gutters, roadside, under the bridge, you will sympathise,” he said. Children found sleeping in such spots were taken straight to the Hajj Camp, where teachers, cooks and healthcare workers were deployed.
However, the Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs, Children, and People with Special Needs—legally responsible for child protection—raised concerns. When ministry officials visited the Hajj Camp, they found no structured case management.
“Hisbah cannot handle child-protection issues the way they handle other issues,” said Yakubu Salihu, a senior official at the ministry. Staff from the ministry had to carry out their own documentation: collecting names, ages, health details and family information.
During their assessment, ministry officials discovered that many of the children had experienced serious harm on the streets, including sexual abuse and untreated illnesses, among them HIV. The scale of vulnerability required more than just shelter and food.
“Children on the streets are vulnerable to a lot of dangers,” Mr Yakubu explained. “You cannot address this without concrete plans for services, family reunion and integration.”
Another complication quickly emerged: nearly 70 per cent of the children were not from Kano.
Some were from neighbouring Nigerian states, while others came from Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. A few had no known families to trace. While the governor wanted the children returned to their home states rapidly, the ministry resisted, insisting they could not send children back without proper case management, psychosocial support and verified reintegration plans.
Meanwhile, sustainability became a major concern. Feeding and caring for more than 200 children required steady funding.
According to Mr Shehu, there are over 5,000 children living in exposed and unsafe conditions across the streets of Kano. The federal government temporarily supported feeding costs, and NGOs assisted in repatriating foreign children. But no other state government stepped in to share responsibility.
“Planning to host more than 5,000 children is a big task that needs to be well-planned and budgeted. The reason the state government stopped the process is to have a clear strategy and budget.”
Even Hisbah officials admitted the truth: the programme was overwhelming and the state was underprepared. “The number of children coming into Kano is too high; the goal of the intervention has not been achieved,” one officer said.
By July and August, Hisbah quietly stopped its nighttime rescues. The children who had already been collected were later quietly transferred from Hajj Camp to Mariri Camp in Kumbotso Local Government Area—an environment designed to facilitate a more thorough assessment.
However, this was done without any public announcement, a move that has triggered widespread controversy and left many members of the public asking one pressing question: where are the children?
As of now, about 231 children remain at Mariri camp, awaiting reunification with families or guardians across states.
Community, Legal and Psychological Perspectives
Community reactions to the programme were mixed.
A parent and community leader, Usman Garba, recalled supporting a neighbour whose child had vanished for days. They eventually discovered that Hisbah had taken the boy to the camp.
“The family was worried until they found him there. The child used to be very rude, but when we saw him in the camp, he was calmer,” he said.
Yet Mr Garba believes the state should have communicated more clearly with parents and communities.
“If there are programmes like this, they should announce it in the media with a clear message so that the public will know what is happening,” he noted.
To him, what the children need more is education.
“The government needs to do more to enrol the children in school to give them hope,” he added.
Some children outside the camp also expressed fear.
Fifteen-year-old Abbas Yusuf*, an almajiri from Katsina who has lived in the streets of Kano for two years, said he heard about the rehabilitation programme but avoided areas where Hisbah was active.
“I don’t want to be taken there because I don’t know them, and I don’t want to be caged. Here is better for me. I think food, money and freedom will be the challenge there. My message to the governor is to sponsor us to good schools, give us food and clothes,” he pleaded.
Civil society groups are more critical. The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), which has long worked on Almajiri issues, warns that forced round-ups and repatriations often breach children’s rights.
The organisation’s Senior Programme Officer, Omoniyi Adewoye, recalled how his organisation raised an alarm in 2020 when states began forcefully returning Almajiri children during the COVID-19 lockdown.
“In most cases, they are forcefully arrested, transported to their supposed states of origin and dumped there like unwanted items,” he said.
He described the Hisbah-led intervention as “not humane and unsustainable,” arguing that a serious solution would focus on poverty, inequality, parenting failures and misconceptions about the religious principles behind the almajiri system.
Lawyers, too, highlight legal tensions.
Becky Dike, an attorney with the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Nigeria, noted that while the government may defend its actions in the name of public interest, several provisions of the Child Rights Act demand caution.
Section 11 prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment; Section 6 protects children against arbitrary deprivation of liberty; Sections 8, 9, 14 and 15 guarantee parental care, protection from neglect and access to education.
“Removing a child from the street can be lawful only if it protects the child from harm, follows due process, and the alternative care meets minimum standards. Taking children without investigation, consent or adequate care arrangements risks violating their rights to dignity, liberty and family life,” she noted.
Psychologists warn of emotional damage, emphasise that even well-intentioned interventions can cause harm if poorly designed.
Sadiya Danyaro, a psychologist at the Federal University Dutsin-Ma, said forced pickups and sudden relocation can trigger fear, nightmares, insecurity, and mistrust in authority.
“Instead of seeing the system as protective, they see it as controlling,” she said.
Ms Danyaro offered a sobering reminder of what is truly at stake.
“Rehabilitation is not just about removing a child from danger,” she said. “It is about giving them stability, dignity, and continuity. When you take children suddenly, move them abruptly, and then leave their future uncertain, you create a new wound while trying to heal an old one.”
She paused, choosing her words carefully.
“When structure disappears overnight, the child feels confused, insecure, and sometimes abandoned. Forced pickups alone can be traumatic. And when support collapses, children begin to fear the very system that claims to protect them,” she added.
From a child-rights perspective, she believes the programme demonstrated both strengths and gaps. Removing children from street dangers and providing basic needs aligned with protection principles, but the reliance on force, lack of psychological care, weak family involvement, and sudden withdrawal of services fell short.
“Sustainable rehabilitation must be child-centred and built on dignity, support, and continuity of care,” she said. “Anything less leaves children more vulnerable than where they were found.”
Looking ahead, children remain caught in the middle
The suspension of the Hisbah-led programme reveals a deeper struggle within Nigeria’s child-protection response: how to balance urgent rescue with legal safeguards, psychological care and sustainability.
To Hisbah officials, the programme was a good one that should continue if the governor approves. The NHRC also defended the intervention as lawful and in the best interest of children abandoned on the streets.
However, a clear gap is seen. While Hisbah and the NHRC focused on the legitimacy of the rescue, the Ministry of Women Affairs insisted that no child should be returned home without proper case management, psychosocial support, and a verified reintegration plan.
This indicates that, despite good intentions, the operation lacked the coordinated systems needed to protect the children beyond the initial rescue.
Additionally, CHRICED argues that coercive, short-term operations cannot replace long-term investments in education, social protection, and regulated Qur’anic schooling.
Meanwhile, about 231 children remain in Mariri Camp, waiting for files to be processed, families to be found, governments to coordinate, and decisions to be made.
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For Abubakar, the boy who remembers being shaken awake under a corridor, the future remains uncertain.
“Even if they want to help us,” he said softly, “they should ask us what we need. We are children, not criminals.”
“I just want an intervention that truly helps us, not one that takes us away and leaves us with nothing,” he added. “If the government says it wants to protect children, then it should give us real shelter, real food, real education — not promises that end in suffering.
His imagined words echo the silent plea of thousands of real boys roaming Kano’s streets, waiting for a system that sees them, hears them, and remembers they, too, deserve a childhood.
* The names of the street children have been changed to protect their identities.
This story was produced with the support of Media Monitoring Africa as part of the Isu Elihle awards.
