Girls have the right to education, skills acquisition and self-actualization. Girl-child education becomes an imperative for the attainment of national development. Research demonstrates clearly that a strong focus on education is capable of transforming society in the long term. Education for the female, within the family unit, is key to the development of the whole, and by extension the community. The human capital of a nation is underscored by the potential of its people being healthier, more educated, empowered and educating half of the population most become a priority for us. Our current realities are that:
Child marriage is often a strategy of economic survival: it generally means one less person to cater for. Although child marriage is seen as an immediate strategy of escaping the cycle of poverty, it, in fact, entrenches and reinforces the cycle of poverty. Research has demonstrated the following:
If all women completed primary education in low and lower-middle income countries,
the under-5 mortality rate would fall by 15%. If all women completed secondary education,
it would fall by 49% equal to around 2.8million lives saved a year.
Women Health: If all women completed primary education,
there would be 66% fewer maternal deaths, saving 189,000 lives per year.
Violence against women: If all girls completed primary school in
sub-Saharan Africa and south and west Asia, the number of girls getting married by
age 15 would fall by 14%; with secondary education, 64% fewer girls would get married.
Education: If all girls completed primary school in sub-Saharan Africa
and south and west Asia, the number of girls getting married by age 15 would fall by 14%;
with secondary education, 64% fewer girls would get married.
Marrying at a young age has lifelong consequences. Child marriage thwarts the girl’s chances
at education, endangers her health and cuts short her personal growth and development.
It impacts directly (adversely) on her community, as she often remains unskilled and
unproductive, most often resorting to ‘talla’ (hawking) in the rural communities.
The incidence of girls hawking severely exposes underage girls to pedophilia. It
further encourages the acceptability of adolescent girls as mature and eligible for marriage,
while keeping them out of School-Quranic or otherwise.
Islam is unequivocal on its stand against
pedophilia and for education, yet there appears to be a general conspiratorial silence about the concept.
The ‘talla’ industry appears to be gradually taken over by rural communities that send
young girls to urban areas to hawk. Getting married (and divorced repeatedly) becomes a means of survival
for the child, irrespective of the negative implications for her, her children and the dysfunction that
ensues from the disruptions in the sphere of health and her children’s welfare, especially. Very few child
brides in our rural areas can continue school in view of the onerous burden of combining all the functions
of wife, motherhood and studying, without the support of outside help and the use of modern gadgets and
facilities like fridges, ovens, etc, which are obviously non-existent in poorer communities. Indeed, the
fact that she is not literate only results in her lack of appreciation for the value of education for her
child, and the cycle of ignorance becomes perpetrated. Indeed, child marriage has robbed the north of sorely
needed professionals and field workers, such as female teachers, doctors and nurses.
Maternal health risks are particularly troubling as the risk of death in pregnancy and delivery for girls
under the age of 15 is five times higher than for women above 18 years of age. Malnutrition and stunting
permanently afflict her children, whose cognitive ability remains impaired for life.
Immaturity in marriage only increases the chances of multiple divorces, which in turn leads to the sheer
number of uncared-for (compromised and abandoned) children and the seeming never-ending supply of ‘almajiri’,
their welfare concern and increasing incidence of drug abuse amongst our youth.
Indeed, child marriage is known to have resulted in murder, suicide and prostitution, as perceived feasible
alternatives to the unwanted marriage. Current realities are that more and more girls are studying out of
school in Northern Nigeria, thereby exacerbating an already dismal situation. Violent conflict has had a
severe impact on the education of the girl-child, as girls have been known to suffer abduction and the
disruption of their education because parent are afraid. With over 300 school buildings having been damaged,
destroyed or otherwise closed as a result of being targeted by the insurgents in this region, parents prefer
to keep their daughters at home, rather than let them attend school. In addition to physical injury, abuse or
psychological distress, family disintegration and the displacement of whole population only make the girl even
more vulnerable.
Ultimately, the costs of this practice of child marriage are too high to be ignored,
as has been the case so far. Because young girls are innocent, voiceless and helpless in the face of such
far-reaching decisions being taken by their own immediate Families (who only seem to focus on their self-serving,
short term financial interests) compounded by the fact that our political leaders consider the prohibition of
child/forced marriage a taboo, communities in Northern Nigeria have remained bedeviled by objects indices in so
many spheres of endeavor, with barely any prospects for transformation in human capital development. Societies
cannot progress when the common practice of child marriage condemns girls and women to a lifetime of unhappiness,
needless deaths, diminished opportunities, shortchanged future, ill health, dysfunction and disrupted family units,
which sundry challenges translate into poverty and helplessness in the communities and the society where the practice
is prevalent.