In Niger, the education of girls, a remedy for the “demographic bomb” – Liberation

On March 22, 2022, Release and the NGO ONE are organizing a special day to challenge presidential candidates on the return of extreme poverty everywhere on the planet and its consequences on the major challenges that await us. On the program: global warming, debt burden, public development aid, food security… Meet at the Théâtre du Rond-Point from 9 am. A special 16-page notebook will accompany this event, in the March 22 edition of Liberation. find in this file these articles.

These were lucky: teenagers, girls and boys, happy and turbulent, who jostle and tease each other, in the corridors and stairs of the elegant ocher buildings of this boarding school, built in 2019 at the end of a road sandy area on the outskirts of Niamey, the capital of Niger. “These children all come from underprivileged families and come from other regions of the country. In general, their parents have not been to school“says the director. He is a magistrate who voluntarily manages this private structure, capable of accommodating a hundred middle and high school students free of charge.thanks to donations and the support of partners“, he explains, before suddenly calling Alimatou. A tiny, smiling 16-year-old figure, draped in bright colors, who wants to be a doctor. She was admitted this year to the Lycée Français de Niamey, one of the best schools in the capital. Because the boarding school here is mainly intended to house and feed the students, while providing them with the daily support of tutors. During the day, the children are scattered in different schools in town.

This model inspired President Mohamed Bazoum, elected a year ago, who pledged to make education his priority. In particular by building a hundred boarding schools. So far, only one has opened in Zinder in the south of the country. But a dozen would be under construction. All intended to accommodate girls only. Because the objective is not only to strengthen education in a very poor country, still essentially rural, of which nearly half of the 22 million inhabitants are under 15 years old. It is also, if not above all, a question of encouraging girls to occupy the school benches for longer. In the hope of curbing an explosive demography. With a record birth rate of more than six children on average per woman, Niger is now the country where the population is growing the fastest in the world. It is also the African country with the highest rate of early marriage of girls: “77% are married before the age of 18, and 28% before the age of 15», recalled the President, in his inauguration speech on 2 April.

School against early marriage

«The strategy is simple», explains Mohamed Zeidane, the secretary general of the Ministry of Education. “The longer girls stay in school, the more they will be able to escape early marriage. They are very numerous in primary school, but drop out quickly afterwards. It is a matter of opportunity cost for parents: “What do we gain by leaving our daughter in school?” With these boarding schools, we solve a recurring problem in rural areas, that of the distance between home and school. And it’ll be one less mouth for the family to feed“, he details. Evoking in the wake of other measures, such as that which consists in strengthening the level of teacher training, which has become catastrophic following the budget cuts imposed in the 1980s by the structural adjustment programs.

Recruit teachers, train them better, the government has already tackled it. But the figures for the numbers concerned are still modest, whereas 600,000 children enter primary school each year. Above all, the country has never seemed so fragile. In Niger, it is modestly called “crisis» : Like neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, this Sahelian country is now the target of incessant attacks by armed jihadist groups which have transformed large parts of this country twice the size of France into forbidden zones. Or at least dangerous.

These groups particularly target schools, considered symbols of Western education: 600 of them have closed, 50,000 children have recently dropped out. “This crisis particularly affects girls. They find themselves locked up at home. And who, under these conditions, will protect them from forced or early marriage?“, worries Nafissatou Hassane Alfari. At 29, this dynamic young woman runs an association in Niamey for the promotion of female leadership. Which, in particular, tries to motivate the girls now isolated in the camera imposed by an unpredictable enemy. “We keep the link, even from a distance, we try to find them constructive activities outside of school. But we know it well, in times of crisis, women’s rights always regress.“, she underlines. His fight is not always well seen: “When you claim to campaign for the emancipation of young girls, you are often accused of importing Western culture. You are accused of having lost your valuesNafissatou confesses.

“Fifteen years ago women were not veiled, now they are almost all”

These kinds of accusations, Hadiza Maiga has also heard them. This businesswoman, fashion designer, offers training, free of charge, to young girls in distress. In her clothing workshop, several dozen silhouettes draped in long veils that only show the oval of the face are bent over sewing machines. Most of them are young single mothers, rejected by their families, andfistulées», victims of genital mutilation still common in Niger. Or young women from areas hit by jihadist attacks. “They arrive in shock. They have often lost their whole family, sometimes lament being deprived of their mothers“, laments Hadiza, herself divorced and remarried, mother of two children. Her career, this elegant thirty-year-old built it on her own, constantly confronting family and social reluctance. Even today, despite the support of ministers and embassies who bring her material aid and multiply orders, she is sometimes confronted with the conservatism of a society which, although destabilized by the influence of the jihadists, has – even gradually radicalized. “On social networks, I am often criticized for posting photos, where the veil that covers my head is considered too light.she sighs.

«We didn’t realize it right away, but our society has become more and more subject to the diktats of the religious, and clothing has imposed itself as one of the criteria of this new conformism. Fifteen years ago women were not veiled. Now almost all of them are.“says Idi Nouhou, author of a tasty novel, a real social satire which depicts a man, torn between two women, an overly devoted wife and a volatile mistress (1). While all eyes were mesmerized by the uncontrollable expansion of the terrorist threat, no one saw coming the growing influence of a Wahabi fundamentalism sponsored by the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, which infiltrated society, imposing new rules. “In many villages, these Islamist charitable NGOs have built a well, and especially a mosque which is often the only solid building in the middle of straw huts. There are now twelve private Islamic universities in Niger, all linked to foreign funds“, underlines Professor Moulaye Hassane, an academic who also directs the program for the fight against radicalization and violent extremism. Apart from its influence on mores, this Islamization of society has not yet called into question the education of girls. But it reinforces certain prejudices. “In a Muslim society like ours, it’s not easy to question the number of children a couple should have, it’s a bit taboo.», underlines Nafissatou Hassane Alfari, at the head of the association for the leadership of young women. “And in a poor and rural society, the child is above all considered as an asset.“, she adds.

Difficult “to be a woman without being a mother”

«We say that a woman is a tree near which her husband rests, to whom she gives fruit.», notes in a rocky voice Aïcha Macky, in her documentary, fruitless tree, released in 2016 to critical acclaim. She evokes there, with a certain courage, her status as a married woman, without children, in a society, where it remains difficult “to be a woman without being a mother“. Aged 40 today, this sociologist turned filmmaker is shaking up Nigerien society. With impressive talent, she points out the evils and ambiguities that undermine her country. Not hesitating to take risks, as when she interferes in the daily life of gangs in Zinder, her hometown, the subject of his latest movie (2).

Proud of her Muslim culture, she insists on the distinction between “islam and patriarchy», emphasizing the weight of cultural constraints in the face of birth control or polygamy, which is still very widespread. But above all, she knows how much the security issue is also linked to this demographic bomb. Which constantly reinforces the cohorts of excluded, school dropouts, unemployed. “Those who are justly coveted by the sirens of evil“, she explains, referring to this youth without prospects, who have become easy prey for armed groups or traffickers. “My luck is to have had access to education when my parents never went to school.“Aïcha, born in a polygamous home, frequently repeats. The numerous prizes won by her films have made her a real star in her country. And how not to regain hope, after a screening of his latest documentary on the gangs of Zinder, observing so many men who jostle at the microphone to pay tribute to him?

Niger’s luck is perhaps to have strong women. Like Aïcha, Hadiza or Nafissatou, they stand out as role models. The worst is never certain.

(1) The king of idiotsIdi Nouhou, Gallimard 2019.

(2) Zinder2021.

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