Girl-child marriage: Experts want NASS clear on consent age

SOGON said the under-age marriage controversy sparked when the legislature failed to get a two-third majority to back the definition of maturity as age 18, has  drawn national and international outcry that cloud the struggle to improve reproductive health and sexual rights of women.“Whatever misunderstanding the Senate has inadvertently enlisted from the public can only […]

SOGON said the under-age marriage controversy sparked when the legislature failed to get a two-third majority to back the definition of maturity as age 18, has  drawn national and international outcry that cloud the struggle to improve reproductive health and sexual rights of women.
“Whatever misunderstanding the Senate has inadvertently enlisted from the public can only be corrected by this same body enacting a bill and passing it without further delay that will outrightly spell out the age of 18 and over as the age of maturity/consent and marriage so that all these can be put behind us,” said SOGON president Dr Fred Achem at a press briefing in Abuja. He said it created optimal conditions for vesico-vaginal fistula and complications  that lead to destitution, neglect and abandonment by “husbands who in the name of culture/religion choose to marry and impregnate under-age children.”
The chances of stillbirths and immediate infant deaths due to asphyxia (suffocation) associated with prolonged, obstructed labour also increase with under-age pregnancies.
Girls pregnant before age 18 have a four times higher risk of dying than girls pregnant after age 18, according to Dr Tunde Segun, country coordinator for Evidence for Action.