Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

259 released from illegal detention in Nigerian mosque

Nigerian police have rescued 259 captives from an illegal detention centre in a mosque in Ibadan, in the south-western state of Oyo.

The owner of the facility and eight others have been arrested, according to local media.

Conditions at the mosque were inhumane, Mr Shina Olukolu, state commissioner of police, told the Punch newspaper.

In the past month, more than 1,000 people have been rescued from similar institutions in Nigeria.

Local police raided the centre on Monday evening after a tip-off from a 17-year-old who had escaped from a similar centre in the area.

Some of the victims reportedly told police they had been held there for years.

This is the latest raid in Nigeria's crackdown on "rehabilitation schools" for drug addicts, troublesome children and people who have committed petty crimes.

Officials have likened the facilities to torture centres, and have vowed to close them down.

People rescued from similar institutions over the past month have reported physical and sexual abuse.

Lawal Ahmed was rescued from a rehabilitation centre earlier in October. He told the BBC that beatings and abuse were commonplace.

He said: "They make a cover story and say they are teaching us. They are not teaching us for the sake of God. Everything we are doing is by force and punishment.

"Whoever tells you they are performing prayers here for the sake of God, they are lying."

BBC

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Wednesday, October 16, 2019

President Buhari to crackdown on abusive Islamic schools

Nigeria's president on Tuesday ordered a crackdown on abuse at Islamic schools, after a second police raid in less than a month revealed men and boys subjected to beatings, abuse and squalid conditions.

Nearly 300 had been held captive at a school in the Daura area of Katsina, the home town of President Muhammadu Buhari, where police said they discovered "inhuman and degrading treatment" following a raid on Monday to free the remaining students.

Late last month, police freed hundreds from similarly degrading conditions in neighbouring Kaduna state.

"Mr President has directed the police to disband all such centres and all the inmates be handed over to their parents," said a presidential spokesman.

"The government cannot allow centres where people, male and female, are maltreated in the name of religion," he said.

Prior to this week's raid, hundreds of captives had escaped the centre, police said on Tuesday.

The 67 inmates who were freed by Katsina police were shackled, and many were taken to hospital for treatment, Police Superintendent Isah Gambo told Reuters.

"I tell you they were in very bad condition when we met them," Gambo said.

A freed captive told Reuters on Monday that the instructors beat, raped and even killed some of the men and boys held at the facility, who ranged from seven to 40 years of age. It was not immediately possible to verify his account.

While the institution told parents it was an Islamic teaching centre that would help straighten out wayward family members, the instructors instead brutally abused them and took away any food or money sent by relatives.

Police said they had arrested the owner of the facility and two teachers, and were tracking other suspects.

The more than 200 captives who escaped were still missing, Gambo said. Police were working to reunite the others with family members.

"The inmates are actually from different parts of the country - Kano, Taraba, Adamawa and Plateau States," he said.

"Some of them are not even Nigerians. They come from Niger, Chad and even Burkina Faso and other countries."

Islamic schools, called almajiris, are common in the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria.

Muslim Rights Concern, a local organisation, estimates about 10 million children attend them.

Buhari said the government planned to ban the schools eventually, but he has not yet commented on the Katsina school.

Al Jazeera

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Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Police in Nigeria rescue another 67 males from "inhuman" conditions

Police in northern Nigeria rescued nearly 70 men and boys from a second purported Islamic school where they were shackled and subjected to "inhuman and degrading treatments."

The raid in Katsina, the northwestern home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, came less a month after about 300 men and boys were freed from another supposed Islamic school in neighbouring Kaduna state where they were allegedly tortured and sexually abused.

"In the course of investigation, sixty-seven persons from the ages of 7 to 40 years were found shackled with chains," Katsina police spokesman Sanusi Buba said in a statement. "Victims were also found to have been subjected to various inhuman and degrading treatments."

The raid occurred on October 12 in Sabon Garin in the Daura local government area of Katsina state. Police issued a statement on Monday and said they were working to reunite the victims with their families.

Police arrested one man, 78-year-old Mallam Bello Abdullahi Umar, for running what they called an "illegal detention/remand home."

Lawai Musa, a trader who lived near the centre, told Reuters by phone that families sent unruly men and boys there believing it was an Islamic teaching facility that would straighten them out and teach them Islamic beliefs.

"The way he is treating the children is un-Islamic" he said. "We are not happy, they were treated illegally."

Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria. Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), a local organisation, estimates about 10 million children attend them.

In June, President Buhari, himself a Muslim, said the government planned to ban the schools, but would not do so immediately. After the incident in Kaduna, the president issued a statement calling on traditional authorities to work with government to expose "unwanted cultural practices that amount to the abuse of children."

Buhari's office declined to immediately comment on the Katsina raid, saying it would issue a statement after a full briefing from police.

"The command enjoins parents to desist from taking their children/wards to illegal, unauthorized or unapproved remand/rehabilitation centres," the police statement said. (Reporting By Ahmed Kingimi, additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja Writing by Libby George Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Yahoo

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Friday, August 16, 2019

Video - Woman arrested in Nigeria after video shows her beating and locking boy in dog cage


A woman who was videotaped beating a 10-year-old boy before locking him in a dog cage has been arrested in Lagos, a police spokesman told CNN Thursday.

The 24-year-old woman, who has not been publicly named by authorities, was taken into custody Wednesday after police analyzed the video and traced her to a specific neighborhood. She was later found there with the boy, whom she identified as her relative, Lagos state police spokesman Bala Elkana said.

The footage, which has sparked social media outrage in Nigeria, shows the woman flogging a half-dressed boy with a belt and then dragging him into a cage, which she locks.

Two dogs were inside kennels beside the cage where the boy was kept.

"She actually confessed that she was the one in the video and that he is a cousin who came to live with her after he lost his parents," Elkana told CNN.

CNN has not been able to reach the woman to determine if she has a lawyer.

Police said the incident took place August 3 and that the woman claimed the boy provoked her after he became drunk and damaged her car.

"She told us that she got angry after the boy took some dry gin and broke the side mirror of her car. Then she locked him in the dog house for some hours. For this we are going to push to charge her with child abuse," Elkana told CNN.

The suspect will remain in custody until she is taken to court Friday, police said, adding that the boy has been handed over to a government shelter in the city.

By Bukola Adebayo

CNN