By Khadija Bawas
When 11year-old Usman was brought to Kano as an Alamajiri child the infant may never have reckoned that staying alive is a battle of wits until he started growing into the reality that he must eat to survive and scavenging became the next available option for him.
Armed with a gunny bag, Usman, a native of Wudil, who is popularly known as Alajin leda at the Aisami solid waste dump site in Kano metropolis, usually rummages through heaps of other peoples garbage, searching for anything salvageable that can earn him between a two hundred and a thousand naira per day for self-sustenance.
You see this food in my hand? Before I got it, I suffered very well, Usman, who was about to have his breakfast of pasta served in a black nylon bag at about 10:00am, when this reporter visited the site, narrated.
Throngs of children, incautious of the raging Covid-19 pandemic, without adherence to its personal protection and control protocol, scavenge various dumpsites across Kano metropolis making out what they could for a living, searching for cartons, glass, pure, rubber and all other recyclables that could earn them something to lean on.
It could be easily observed that the bulk of the children who are into the scavenging business are kids between the ages of 2 18. Even the obviously grown-up among them started scavenging at childhood. Usman for instance, started at 2yrs old; Bappa Amin, who is 22, started the business fifteen years ago when he was about seven years old.
I started keeping myself busy with this trade since I was a child; our friends drew us into it and I have gotten a lot of blessings from it. In this business, I have picked gold, silver and a lot of other goodies, he said.
When asked how they fared under the threat of the raging Covid-19 pandemic which is yet to abate, Bappa had this to say: Even during the pandemic, we had no business with the protocols; when we go out, we follow, but when we come back to our enclave, nothing like that. I have spent fifteen years doing this, I can eat anything from the garbage, I have eaten yams from a dump site and nothing has happened to me, he boasted bashfully.
Last year, the coronavirus pandemic hit the world on a scale most people alive today have never seen. Globally, the outbreak is claiming lives and livelihoods as health systems buckle, education is disrupted and families struggle to stay afloat.
In the North, the pandemic once again brought the Almajiri discourse to the front-burner, as Northern Governors, in May last year, started deporting children to their various States across the region in a bid to curb the spread of the Coronavirus outbreak.
Many of the street kids searching for Islamic knowledge but turned into destitute and scavengers across the North had been infected by the virus at the time State governments were scrambling frantically to send them back to their respective States.
Disruptions to society have a heavy impact on children: on their safety, their well-being, their future.
Approximately 150 million additional children are living in multi-dimensional poverty without access to education, health care, housing, nutrition, sanitation or water due to the Cocid-19 pandemic, according to the analysis jointly carried out by ‘Save-the-Children’ and UNICEF.
This is particularly true for 15-yr-old Sani, popularly known as TK, whom once school is done for the day, he rushes home to change out of his uniform so that he can start his job as a scavenger at the Aisami dump site; he doesnt care about putting on hand gloves, shoes nor any Covid-19 protection material.
I dont care about all those Coronavirus stuffs. All I care about is finding my balance between the disruption and my schooling, he said.
For 18-yr-old Abdullahi, at the Kurmawa dumpsite of the metropolis, who started scavenging at 11 years old, the whole thing is a farce.
I came from Katsina as an Almajiri, but I abandoned that to do this business because I must survive; I am not deterred by the pandemic, he said.
However, for 12-yr-old Aliyu, who scavenges at the same dumpsite, his niche is different. He specializes in picking up damaged lamps, repairs them and resell for profit.
All these activities form the basis for carriage and spread of the pandemic, which is yet to be fully arrested globally.
Dr. Bashir Usman, a leading medical practitioner at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, (AKTH), shed more light on this:
It is true that science has shown that the virus is not so deadly on children; but this creates another kind of situation, whereby children who are carriers may unwittingly spread it to the vulnerable without even knowing it. So, this activity if not properly guided, is hazardous to peoples lives eventually.
Dr. Bashir, who agrees that the situation is caused by the downward spiral in the economy, expressed further concern that besides spreading the virus, most of the child scavengers are vulnerable to infections, crime, and exposure to drug abuse.
Issues like tract infections and diarrheal diseases are things we will also be grappling with, because they are not protected, he said.
He opines that the best way of preventing the dangers ahead is to formalize the trade to ensure regulations as well as support informal businesses to secure economic status.
This article is part of Covid-19 Response: ‘Together for Reliable Information’ project, implementated by PAGED Initiative and supported by the EU & FreePress Unlimited.
