The talibés in Senegal and almajirai (plural of almajiri) in Nigeria are remarkably similar. Both groups consist of young boys sent away from their rural families to live in urban residential Islamic schools, where traditional practices have increasingly devolved into systemic street begging and child exploitation.
Both are rooted in traditional Islamic boarding systems—called daaras in Senegal and tsangaya or almajiri schools in Northern Nigeria—where students focus intensely on memorising the Quran under a religious teacher (maramu or mallam).
Parents typically send their young sons (often starting at age 4 to 7) away from impoverished countryside villages to major cities, trusting they will receive a pious religious upbringing. Rather than being fully provided for by their teachers or communities, many of these children are mandated to spend hours each day roaming the streets to meet daily quotas for money or food.
International bodies and NGOs classify the systemic neglect, lack of formal secular education, malnutrition, and forced labour surrounding both groups as severe child protection and welfare crises.
The systems of both the Talibés in Senegal and the Almajirai in Nigeria began as highly respected, community-supported networks for higher Islamic education. Over centuries, economic pressures, colonisation, and rapid urbanisation transformed them from prestigious academic traditions into the marginalised systems seen today.
The Almajiri System in Nigeria, Pre-Colonial Prestige: The word almajiri comes from the Arabic al-Muhajirun, meaning "the emigrant." It historically referred to students who travelled to gain knowledge. In the pre-colonial Kanem-Bornu Empire and Sokoto Caliphate, these schools were elite institutions. They produced the region’s judges, clerks, and scholars. The traditional schools (tsangaya) were heavily subsidised by the ruling emirs, wealthy patrons, and the local community through zakat (charitable giving). Students did not need to beg because the community willingly fed and clothed them as a religious duty.
The British Disruption: In 1904, the British colonial administration conquered Northern Nigeria. They abolished state funding for Islamic schools and refused to recognise them legally. At the same time, they introduced a Western-style secular school system that required fees, which most poor Muslim families rejected. Deprived of state financial support, teachers (mallams) and their students lost their livelihoods. To survive, schools migrated to urban commercial centres, and students were forced to work or beg for food and charity, transforming a system of prestigious scholarship into a survival mechanism.
The Talibé System in Senegal, Pre-Colonial Integration: In Senegal, traditional Islamic schools (daaras) were deeply integrated into rural agrarian societies. Young boys (talibés, from the Arabic talib, meaning "student") studied the Quran under a religious teacher (marabout). Historically, talibés did not beg for money on city streets. Instead, they worked alongside their marabout on communal agricultural land, growing food to feed the school. This labour was viewed as character-building, teaching the boys humility, discipline, and the value of hard work.
The French colonial administration in Senegal marginalised traditional daaras, choosing to fund and promote French secular schools instead. This isolated the Islamic schools economically, restricting them to rural areas. During the 1970s and 1980s, severe droughts devastated West African agriculture, making rural farming unsustainable. Desperate marabouts moved their daaras into large cities like Dakar to survive. Lacking land to farm and unable to afford city life, the teachers adapted the traditional labour model, sending children onto urban streets to beg for daily cash and food quotas.
Equivalent systems and student populations are found in Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire.
While colonial education policies are a major historical catalyst, they are not the sole ultimate cause for the widespread street begging associated with almajirai (in Nigeria) and talibés (in Senegal/West Africa). Widespread rural poverty leads many families to send children away to daaras or tsangaya schools because they cannot afford to feed them at home. In addition, secular post-colonial governments often failed to integrate or properly regulate traditional religious schools, leaving a legal vacuum where abusive teachers can exploit children for economic gain. What was historically a minor or non-systemic practice of enduring hardship or seeking alms has morphed in urban environments into commercialised, forced begging managed by exploitative networks.
Both Senegal and Nigeria have introduced several legal reforms, modern curriculum integrations, and bans on street begging to address these crises. However, enforcing these laws remains incredibly difficult due to political pressure, deep-rooted cultural traditions, and severe enforcement gaps. In Nigeria particularly, the federal government launched major initiatives to build "Model Islamic Schools" (Tsangaya schools). These schools fuse traditional Quranic memorisation with basic English, mathematics, and vocational training, funded by the state, to eliminate the financial need for begging. But neither government has the budget or infrastructure to house, feed, and formally educate the millions of children who rely on these systems for shelter. Also, many rural, conservative parents still distrust state-run secular schools, viewing them as elite institutions that do not teach moral values.
In Northern Nigeria, the almajiri system is deeply scrutinised as a critical national security concern. Security analysts and organisations like the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) highlight how the system functions as a vulnerability pipeline. With an estimated 30 million out-of-school and almajiri children in Nigeria, violent non-state actors like Boko Haram, ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province), and northern bandit groups look to these children as prime recruitment pools.
While the system itself does not inherently teach violent extremism, it produces hundreds of thousands of boys who grow up experiencing severe poverty, isolation, and a lack of parental love or state support. When they outgrow the schools, they often have no secular education, no literacy, or job skills, leaving them economically desperate and susceptible to the financial and ideological promises of insurgent groups.
Also, because almajiri children are highly visible begging on city streets, they face intense societal stigmatisation, sometimes being pejoratively labelled by the public as "urchins" or future criminals. This social exclusion deepens their detachment from the state, making anti-government insurgent narratives more appealing.
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| Talibés beg in Senegal's St Louis's main market. The boys can spend up to 10 hours on the streets in search of food and money, with severe beatings awaiting some. Photo by Pete Pattison/The Guardian |
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