Maimuna Abdullahi’s life became scarred forever at age 13. Shortly after returning from school one day, her journey into marriage began. Not used to the rigours of a wife, Maimuna fled back home. The father, Haruna, who had received a bride price from his son-in-law, Saidu, his friend’s eldest son who was twice Maimuna’s age, sent her back. Unable to withstand the physical abuse, she ran away again to another part of Kaduna State. It made Saidu to divorce her. He asked for a refund of the bride price, which never came. Undeterred, Saidu made a solemn vow: his next marriage would be to a 12-year-old, who, according to him, is still innocent and is untainted by education. Welcome to the bleak world of child brides in Nigeria. A disturbingly age-old practice, it shows no signs of abating. But it is time to put an end to it.
Child marriage draws its resilience from poverty, ignorance, tradition and religious customs. It torments its victims ruthlessly; yet, the elite stubbornly refuse to uproot its tentacles. According to unicef, 43 per cent of Nigerian girls are married off before their 18th birthday. Child marriage is intractable, particularly in the North. “The prevalence of child marriage varies widely from one region to another, with figures as high as 76 per cent in the North-West and as low as 10 per cent in the South-East,” states a UNICEF report entitled, “State of the World’s Children 2016.” This is a gruesome indicator that something has gone terribly wrong.
Launching a campaign to eradicate it by 2030, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo lamented the prevalence of child marriage in Nigeria. Abuja is targeting a reduction of 40 per cent by 2020, just four years away. It is encouraging that Nigeria is fighting back, but the mission is overly ambitious. “West and Central Africa have the highest rate of child marriage in the world,” Osinbajo said. Children should not be wives or mothers. Hard to argue with that. But that is what our society takes them for.
Sociologists define child marriage as a formal marriage or informal union that takes place before the age of 18. It is without the free or valid consent of one or both of the partners and involves either physical or emotional pressure; a human rights violation that robs girls of their childhood and arguably their future. The Child Rights Act, a global law that rightly prescribes 18 years as the age of marriage, was adopted by Nigeria in 2003, but has been implemented in the breach by the 24 states that have domesticated it. Consequently, a young generation of Nigerian girls is trapped in child marriage.
Among its other adverse consequences, it has a direct correlation with perpetual economic underdevelopment, domestic violence, crime, health and mental convulsions. In a controversial case, Ese Oruru, then 14, was abducted from her Yenagoa, Bayelsa State home in August 2015 and forced into marriage by Yunusa Dahiru, who is currently on trial. Dahiru was ably supported by the Kano traditional establishment. She has already been delivered of a baby, but it is scant consolation.
Health-wise, child marriage is dangerous. Girl-brides cannot withstand pregnancy and childbirth. During childbirth, they go into prolonged labour because their reproductive organs are not yet well-formed. It is either they die in the process or contract obstetric fistula. This is a horrible medical condition hallmarked by constant incontinence, shame and social segregation. With a figure of 800,000 (or 40 per cent), Nigeria boasts the highest number of Vesico Vaginal Fistula in the world, says the United Nations Population Fund. Out of this, 680,000 are located in the North-West and North-East regions, where child marriage occurs at a high frequency. Between 12,000 and 20,000 VVF cases are added annually to this.
As could be expected, some desperate child brides resist this imposition. In 2014, Wasila Umar, 14, killed her husband (aged 35) and his three friends by lacing their food with rat poison in Kano State. But some, like Habiba Isyaku, are just trapped, perhaps, because the establishment is just too powerful for them. Habiba was abducted and married off without the consent of her parents in October. Jamilu Lawal hid the 14-year-old girl and married her with the knowledge of the Katsina Emirate Council. The emirate and the religious leaders said she had converted to Islam.
This is unreasonable. Religion is for good purposes, but it is misapplied to accentuate child marriage demographics in Northern Nigeria. Without rolling back these primitive religious practices, it will be a tall order for Nigeria to stamp out child marriage. The impact of this phenomenon on education is huge. UNESCO records that 10.5 million Nigerian children were out of school as of 2014, the highest in the world. Over 60 per cent of them are girls in Northern Nigeria.
Unfortunately, the legislation on child marriage is ambiguous. Section 29 (4) of the 1999 Constitution says, (a) “full age” means the age of eighteen years and above; (b) any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age. The elite exploit the lacuna to perpetuate child marriage. The case of Ahmed Yerima, a senator and former governor of Zamfara State, who married an Egyptian minor, epitomises this.
With coordination by Plan International, a United Kingdom charity, Guatemala is successfully fighting child marriage. Although the legal age of marriage is 18 in America, Nebraska (19) and Mississippi (21), use their own parameters. Another state, Virginia, in July, withdrew the rights of girls under 18 years from getting married even with parental consent with a new law. Our religious and traditional institutions have a big role to play if the campaign is to succeed. They must make a major shift from their prevailing attitude that fuels the practice.
