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Child not bride

Child marriage is the marriage of a girl or a boy before the age of 18, and it refers to both formal and informal unions…

Child marriage is the marriage of a girl or a boy before the age of 18, and it refers to both formal and informal unions in which children under the age of 18 live with a partner as if married.

The reasons girls are married are diverse. Parents sometimes believe that through marriage, they are protecting their daughters and increasing their economic opportunities.

However, child marriage exposes girls to increased health problems and violence, denies them access to social network and support systems and perpetuates a cycle of poverty and gender inequality.

Early child marriage is a violation of a child’s human rights. Despite being prohibited by international law, it continues to rob millions of girls under 18 around the world of their childhood.

Let us look at the case of a 16-year-old girl in Akure. When she was 15, a Muslim cleric, Alhaji Yusuf Lateef, appraoched her parents, his members, Mr. and Mrs. Olasunkanmi, in 2019 to seek her hand in marriage. Despite the girl’s protest, her parents forced her to accept the proposal and a day was fixed for the marriage. The case went to court and was presided over by Justice Aderemi Adegoroye, who stopped the Muslim cleric from taking the 16-year-old girl as his ninth wife.

According to reports, the court ordered the return of the girl to her family for proper care and education and warned the cleric to stay away from her.

Before then, the girl, in connivance with her elder brother, Quadiri, fled home on the wedding day and went to the Ministry of Women Affairs, where she was sheltered and legal works began to stop the marriage.

Alhaji Lateef and the girl’s parents were later arraigned at the in court for breeching Part 3 of the 2007 Ondo State Child Rights Law. The court eventually ruled that the girl be returned to her parents and Alhaji Lateef be made to sign an undertaking to stay away  from her, as well as ensure no harm came her way.

This 16-year-old was smart and lucky enough to escape being married as the ninth wife  at an early age. A lot of girls never had the opportunity to be heard.

According to UN, 37,000 girls under the age of 18 are married each day. We now have the greatest number of married girls and girls at risk of child marriage than ever before. One in three girls in the developing world are married before 18. One in nine are married before the age of 18. If the present trend continues, more than 140 million girls will be married before the age of 18 in the next decade.

Globally, almost 400 million women now aged  20 to 49 were married before the age of 18.

Child marriage does more harm  to girls, children, the society and the nation at large. No child deserves to pass through torture in a man’s hand.

Child labour and child marriage are two sides of a coin. They deliberately snatch childhood and leave everlasting scars on the victim.

Grace O. A. is the Programme Assistant of the NGO, Women & children’s Safety Programme also called the Cal-maji Foundation – ([email protected])

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