Seasonal migration, locally called the Exode, plays an important part of the economic and cultural life of the West African nation of Niger. While it is a common practice in many nations, Niger sees as much as a third of its rural population travel for seasonal labour, during the Sahelian nation's long dry season. [1] Common patterns of seasonal travel have been built up over hundreds of years, and destinations and work vary by community and ethnic group.
About 78% of the almost 14 million people in Niger are engaged in crop or livestock agriculture, many in small rural villages operating at subsistence levels. [2] As a solution to both the variability of harvests in the dry Sahel and a way to earn currency, Nigerien communities often seek alternate and seasonal sources of income. Each year, during the dry season following harvest, men from many communities in rural Niger travel for temporary work. [3] That process, called the Exode (French for Exodus) normally takes place between January and April in Niger, but it is a process common to many other nations of West Africa. [1] [4]
Historically, different ethnic and regional communities have traveled to different areas. The patterns are in part inherited from precolonial trade networks; cross-border ethnic solidarities; colonial-era industrial, mining/and harvest projects and the attraction of areas with greater work potential, combined with communities of immigrants from the source ethnic group. Areas in the north of the country, where stock raising is more common, see around 20% of the total population migrate for season work, but in the south, dominated by small farming communities, as much as a third of the population travels for seasonal work. [1]
While some women take part, most who take part in the Nigerien Exode are men (unmarried and married) between 15 and 40 years old. [1] Certain communities have traditions of women traveling for seasonal work both domestically and abroad, but it is purely a male preserve in others. [5] Most men travel outside Niger, but cities like Maradi and Niamey also will see a large seasonal influx seeking labor. The major destinations remain Nigeria, which shares large Hausa ethnic communities with Niger, and the former French colonies of Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso. In southern destinations, agricultural work is available long after the season has passed in Niger, and cities offer a variety of casual labor. [6] The famines of the 1960s–1980s Sahel drought helped to cement such seasonal migration patterns. [7]
Men from a community will often travel together to the same towns on each year, many to the same areas that their fathers had traveled. For many in rural communities that pursue subsistence farming, that provides most of their yearly cash income and is thus a crucial element of the rural economy, but it is not counted in the formal economy of Niger. [8] Cash earned is partially spent abroad for necessities such as clothing, carried back at the end of the season, or sent via friends and clan or ethnic networks. A 2008 study found that not only most migrant workers never use of banks or money transfer systems but also the Exode period is often a time that men will take out informal loans against their expected seasonal earnings. [9]
Men on Exode may also bring back sexually transmitted diseases from their season abroad. That has been flagged as a potential vector for HIV/AIDS to enter Niger, which currently has one of the lowest infection rates in the world. [10]
Measles outbreaks (largely among young children) still occur in Niger, in part because of the low vaccination rate and in part due from the transhumance seasonal migration of semi-nomadic herding populations. Sporadic outbreaks in Nigerien communities were found to have occurred beginning at the end of the rainy season, when many rural populations begin seasonal migration pattern, with traveling children often missing their vital second immunization booster against the disease. [11]
Zarma-Songhai men often travel to Ghana and Burkina Faso, retracing a pattern of migration recorded from at least the 17th century, when Zarma soldiers were recruited to fight for the small kingdoms in what is now northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso. The trade networks that resulted from the migration survived throughout the colonial period, and they also allowed Djerma a way of escaping to British-controlled Gold Coast Colony during times of particularly onerous French forced labour under the Indigénat as well as in times of drought in the 1910s, 1930s and 1940s.
The example of the Zarrma-Songhai of Niger's migration to the former Gold Coast Colony is memorably portrayed by French filmmaker Jean Rouch in his film "Jaguar" (1954-1955). For the film and accompanying academic study, Rouch joins an urban educated Songhai (Damouré Zika), a Sorko fisherman (Illo Gaoudel), and a Fula [12] herdsman (Lam Ibrahima Dia) who travel from the Niger river town of Ayorou to Accra and Kumasi. The Songhai finds work with other Songhai in an Accra lumber market, the Sorko fishes the coast among Ewe fishermen to finance a small business in Accra, and the Fula finds a job selling perfumes with a family member in Kumasi market. [13]
Hausa communities in Niger often send men south to Nigeria during the Exode, not only to majority-Hausa areas in the north of the nation but also to large cities such as Lagos that contain networks of Hausa immigrants. Hausa immigrant communities, as far afield as Ghana, also provide a focus for Nigerien seasonal migration. During the late pre-colonial and the early colonial period, Hausa communities also saw frequent labor migrations to escape rule by states linked to the Sokoto Caliphate to the south and the French to the north and west. [14]
Fula communities, scattered across all of West Africa, provide a frame for Nigerien Wodaabe-Fula seasonal labor networks as far afield as Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire and Lagos in Nigeria. Wodaabe women are more likely to travel for seasonal work migration than other groups, especially the Hausa people, and they often face discrimination in Nigerian communities to which they travel. [15]
Tuareg communities in the north, like the pastoralist Fula, have their own established seasonal migration patterns revolving around moving their herds in transhumance cycles for pastures and markets. However, they too see seasonal labor migration. Algeria and Libya and south into Nigeria are the more common destinations, amongst Tuareg communities of the complex interrelated Kels or clan structure. The successful export industry coming from the Aïr Mountains oases production of produce such as onions carries other local men as far south as Côte d'Ivoire. [7] Tuareg men are often seen in cities across the Sahel region working in security, an evolution of the traditional self-imposed cultural preference for certain jobs by aristocratic or warrior caste Tuareg men.
Exode traditions also provide the basis for modern longer term emigration from Niger to the Maghreb and to Europe. Niger is a transit point for immigrants from throughout West Africa, traveling by truck and bus northward, especially to Libya, a frequent starting point in attempting to cross to Europe. [6]
Niger or the Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria to the south, Benin and Burkina Faso to the southwest, Mali to the west, and Algeria to the northwest. It covers a land area of almost 1,270,000 km2 (490,000 sq mi), making it the largest landlocked country in West Africa and the second largest landlocked nation in Africa behind Chad. Over 80% of its land area lies in the Sahara. Its predominantly Muslim population of about 25 million lives mostly in clusters in the south and west of the country. The capital Niamey is located in Niger's southwest corner along the namesake Niger River.
The demographic features of Nigeriens, the people of Niger consist of population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The music of Niger has developed from the musical traditions of a mix of ethnic groups; Hausa, the Zarma-Songhai, Tuareg, Fula, Kanuri, Toubou, Diffa Arabs and Gurma and the Boudouma from Lac Chad.
The culture of Niger is marked by variation, evidence of the cultural crossroads which French colonialism formed into a unified state from the beginning of the 20th century. What is now Niger was created from four distinct cultural areas in the pre-colonial era: the Djerma dominated Niger River valley in the southwest; the northern periphery of Hausaland, made mostly of those states which had resisted the Sokoto Caliphate, and ranged along the long southern border with Nigeria; the Lake Chad basin and Kaouar in the far east, populated by Kanuri farmers and Toubou pastoralists who had once been part of the Kanem-Bornu Empire; and the Tuareg nomads of the Aïr Mountains and Saharan desert in the vast north. Each of these communities, along with smaller ethnic groups like the pastoral Wodaabe Fula, brought their own cultural traditions to the new state of Niger.
The Songhai people are an ethnolinguistic group in West Africa who speak the various Songhai languages. Their history and lingua franca is linked to the Songhai Empire which dominated the western Sahel in the 15th and 16th century. Predominantly adherents of Islam, the Songhai are primarily located in Niger and Mali. Historically, the term "Songhai" did not denote an ethnic or linguistic identity but referred to the ruling caste of the Songhay Empire known as the Songhaiborai. However, the correct term used to refer to this group of people collectively by the natives is "Ayneha". Although some speakers in Mali have also adopted the name Songhay as an ethnic designation, other Songhay-speaking groups identify themselves by other ethnic terms such as Zarma or Isawaghen. The dialect of Koyraboro Senni spoken in Gao is unintelligible to speakers of the Zarma dialect of Niger, according to at least one report. The Songhay languages are commonly taken to be Nilo-Saharan but this classification remains controversial: Dimmendaal (2008) believes that for now it is best considered an independent language family.
The Region of Maradi is one of seven regions of Niger. It is located in south-central Niger, east of the Region of Tahoua, west of Zinder, and north of the Nigerian city of Katsina. The administrative centre is at Maradi. The population of the Region is predominantly Hausa.
The Wodaabe is a name that is used to designate a subgroup of the Fula ethnic group who are traditionally nomadic found primarily in Niger and Chad. All Wodaabe people should not be mistaken as Mbororo as these are two separate subgroups of the Fulani people. It is translated into English as "Cattle Fulani", and meaning "those who dwell in cattle camps". The Wodaabe culture is one of the 186 cultures of the standard cross-cultural sample used by anthropologists to compare cultural traits. A Wodaabe woman, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, was also chosen to represent civil society of the world on the signing of Paris Protocol on 22 April 2016.
The Iwellemmedan (Iwəlləmədǎn), also spelled Iullemmeden, Aulliminden, Ouilliminden, Lullemmeden, and Iwellemmeden, are one of the seven major Tuareg tribal or clan confederations. Their communities are historically nomadic and intermixed with other ethnic groups. The Iwellemmeden inhabit a wide area ranging from east and north central Mali, through the Azawagh valley, into northwestern Niger and south into northern Nigeria. While once a single confederation of dozens of Tuareg clans, subject peoples, and allied groups, since the 18th century they have been divided into Kel Ataram (west) and Kel Dinnik (east) confederations.
Abalak is a town located in the Tahoua Region, Abalak Department of northern Niger. It is both a town and Commune: a local administrative division. It is the seat (Chef-lieu) of Abalak Department, one of eight subdivisions of Tahoua Region. The town had a population of less than 74,719 at the 2012 census.
Islam in Niger accounts for the vast majority of the nation's religious adherents. The faith is practiced by more than 99.3% of the population, although this figure varies by source and percentage of the population who are classified as Animist. The vast majority of Muslims in Niger are Malikite Sunni. Many of the communities who continue to practice elements of traditional religions do so within a framework of syncretic Islamic belief, making agreed statistics difficult. Islam in Niger, although dating back more than a millennium, gained dominance over traditional religions only in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and has been marked by influences from neighboring societies. Sufi brotherhoods have become the dominant Muslim organization, like much of West Africa. Despite this, a variety of interpretations of Islam coexist—largely in peace—with one another as well as with minorities of other faiths. The government of Niger is secular in law while recognising the importance of Islam to the vast majority of its citizens.
The Zarma people are an ethnic group predominantly found in westernmost Niger. They are also found in significant numbers in the adjacent areas of Nigeria and Benin, along with smaller numbers in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Sudan. In Niger, the Zarma are often considered by outsiders to be of the same ethnicity as the neighboring Songhaiborai, although the two groups claim differences, having different histories and speaking different dialects. They are sometimes lumped together as the Zarma-Songhay or Songhay-Zarma.
The Cinema of Niger began in the 1940s with the ethnographical documentary of French director Jean Rouch, before growing to become one of the most active national film cultures in Francophone Africa in the 1960s-70s with the work of filmmakers such as Oumarou Ganda, Moustapha Alassane and Gatta Abdourahamne. The industry has slowed somewhat since the 1980s, though films continue to be made in the country, with notable directors of recent decades including Mahamane Bakabe, Inoussa Ousseini, Mariama Hima, Moustapha Diop and Rahmatou Keïta. Unlike neighbouring Nigeria, with its thriving Hausa and English-language film industries, most Nigerien films are made in French with Francophone countries as their major market, whilst action and light entertainment films from Nigeria or dubbed western films fill most Nigerien theatres.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Niger:
Agriculture is the primary economic activity of a majority of Niger's 17 million citizens.
Andéramboukane is a town and cercle in Ménaka Region, Mali. It lies at the extreme east of the country, several kilometers north of the Nigerien border. It was previously a commune in Ménaka Cercle but was promoted to the status of a cercle when Ménaka Region was implemented in 2016.
Damouré Zika was a Nigerien traditional healer, broadcaster, and film actor. Coming from a long line of traditional healers in the Sorko ethnic group of western Niger, Zika appeared in many of the films of French director Jean Rouch, becoming one of Niger's first actors. As a practitioner of traditional medicine, he opened a clinic in Niamey, and was for many years a broadcaster and commentator on health issues for Niger's national radio.
The Kurtey people are a small ethnic group found along the Niger River valley in parts of the West African nations of Niger, Benin, Mali, and Nigeria. They are also found in considerable numbers in Ghana, Togo, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso.
The Ikelan are a caste within Tuareg society, who were at one time slaves or servile communities in their natives lands like Mauritania, Mali and Niger.
Bankilaré is a village and rural commune in Niger. Bankilaré commune, centered on the town of the same name, is in Téra Department, Tillabéri Region, in the northwestern corner of the country. The town lies 60 km north of Departmental capital Téra, and around the same distance from the Burkina Faso border and the Mali border. As of 2012, it had a population of 84,893.
Women in Niger are women that are from or live in the West African country of Niger. These women belong to a population in which 98% are practitioners of Islam. Laws adopted by the government of Niger to protect the rights of Nigerien women are most often based on Muslim beliefs.
