Child marriage, why it must stop

Hassana (surname withheld) was married off by her parents at the age of eleven to a man old enough to be her father’s elder brother at her village in the Northwest of Nigeria. She was his fourth wife, she tells an audience of dignitaries who gathered to commemorate an event to end child marriage by […]

Hassana (surname withheld) was married off by her parents at the age of eleven to a man old enough to be her father’s elder brother at her village in the Northwest of Nigeria.

She was his fourth wife, she tells an audience of dignitaries who gathered to commemorate an event to end child marriage by 2030 at the Sheraton and Towers Hotel Abuja recently.

“I was pregnant by the age of 12, and I lost the baby because the delivery was long and hard. As if that was not enough I got VVF (Vesico Vagina Fistula) from the labour and my husband sent me packing.

 

“I had to go back to my parents’ home. The embarrassment was too much. If not for the quick intervention by an agency to fix girls like me living with this problem, I don’t know what would have happened to me, since we could not afford to pay for the surgery.

“Now I am trying to start all over again, I really want to go to school and become a doctor.’’

Ramatu’s story is not so different, she was nine when her parents gave her out in marriage.

“I had not even attained puberty or seen my menses, my breast were just developing when I married my husband, he was forty, I was nine, he forced himself on me when I was ten, though I never got pregnant, he died not long after,” she recalls.

“I am twelve years old now and a widow, and I know I will be married off soon by my parents.”

Child marriage is not peculiar to Nigeria alone, research by the Human Rights Watch revealed that Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Malawi, Nepal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Yemen, and Zimbabwe have many similar stories.

 

Mausi Segun, a Senior Nigeria Researcher with the Human Rights Watch in a presentation, ‘Child ‘Marriage’ As A Major Human Rights Violation’ noted that child marriage harms girls’ mental and physical well-being, and threatens their education and safety. 

 

In her paper, she adds that the rate of child marriage in Nigeria may be lower than in some other countries, but the size of the population in Nigeria makes the country a large contributor to the incidence globally.

“Between 2000 – 2004 some 2.7 million girls in Nigeria married before the age of 18, making the country the fourth largest contributor of girl-child marriages, well below India (24.2 million), but not too far behind Bangladesh and Brazil.

Nigeria’s female population of ages 15-19 is 8,606,910, out of which 28.7% is currently married.

According to a recent progress report by, Girls Not Brides, a non-governmental organization found that global rates of child marriage are declining, particularly for girls under age 15.

The vice president of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo, advocating for an end to child marriage come 2030, noted that cases of child marriage in the country are very clear, saying, “There is evidence of correlation between child marriage and poverty.

West and Central Africa have the highest rate of child marriage in the world. Two out of five girls are married before they are 18. There is unassailable proof that early marriage affects the physical, mental and psychological health of the girl child,” he said.

He, however noted that “Nigeria has made positive advances in ending child marriage through the enactment of the Child Right Act.”

According to him, 24 states in the country have domesticated the Act.  But, he attributed the success or otherwise of such a law in the country to belief systems among the people.

The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Aisha Jummai Alhassan, revealed that in 2015 an estimated six million girls were married out by the age of 15 years, but added that strategic plans are underway to take the campaign to states across the country.

She added that child marriages are extremely prevalent in the Northwest and Northeast geo-political zones of Nigeria.

“Northern Nigeria has one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world with an estimated 65% of children married off below the age of 18 years with detrimental consequences on children, women, families, communities and nations.

“There are always high maternal mortality and morbidity, illiteracy, lack of skills, unemployment, low income and wide spread misery among the victims of child marriage especially female victims,” Hajiya Aisha said.

She said the campaign is aimed at creating awareness and sensitizing the public on the dangers of child marriage with a view to ending or reducing the trend to its barest minimum in Nigeria.

For girls like Ramatu and Hassana, the campaign would not have come at a better time to save them from further hardship.

 

The Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Professor Babatunde Osotimehin, who is on a working visit to Nigeria to advocate for increased girl education in the country noted that if implemented, the policy would ensure swift development and a strategic means to meet the sustainable development goals.

 

He explained that an enlightened individual will definitely make informed decisions that would augur well for the country.

He is calling for support for interventions that will reduce maternal mortality, improve girl child education, increase investment in girls and promote their rights and access to reproductive health services.

“We should work toward getting girls to go to school and stay in school. A girl who goes to school and stays in school till about 18 is a better mother than a girl who has a child at 10.”

Ms. Ratidzai Ndhlovu, UNFPA Representative, Nigeria, said some of the reasons why child marriage strived in a country might not be unrelated to gender stereotypes and societal pressures, poor parents who sometimes marry girls off to make extra income from prospective husbands or just to have one less mouth to feed.

That is a notion that is shared by Mausi Segun who also stressed that other reasons for early girl marriages could be lack of access to education which makes them vulnerable to early marriage, while child labour pushes girls out of school.

Her words: “Low literacy level of one or both parents of girls, especially the father can mean unquestioned acceptance of gender stereotypes about the role of girls as wives and mothers.”

According to her, youths and the girls themselves must take an interest in their destiny by speaking out against these injustices.

“Girls can help end the scourge of early marriage. The first step is to educate them about their rights and involve them in the design of programmes to end the harmful practice.

“Ending child marriage will not be easy. It requires governments to set a goal, plan how to get there, and find the resources and political will to make the plan work. It requires a multi-sectoral approach involving education, health, birth and marriage registration, law enforcement, justice, and local government authorities working together,” she said.