Nigeria has intensified its efforts to end child marriage and abuse against female gender. This follows a nationwide campaign that was launched this week after it joined the African Union (AU) campaign to eliminate the practice.
In this vein, the Africa most populous nation became 16th country to join the campaign. The federal government made child marriage illegal in 2003, but only two-thirds of the 36 states have implemented the law.
A United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) report stated that at least, four in 10 girls in Nigeria are married off before they turn 18, while almost a fifth are wed before they reach 15.
Early marriage deprives girls of an education, increases the likelihood of sexual violence and HIV, and puts them at risk of serious injury or death during childbirth, experts say.
“These (childbirth) complications are a leading cause of death among adolescents girls in countries like Nigeria … this is unnecessary and unacceptable,” said Mohamed Fall, UNICEF’s representative in Nigeria.
Rates of child marriage vary widely across Nigeria, with figures as high as 76 percent in the northwest, and as low as 10 percent in the southeast, said campaign group Girls not Brides.
Women’s rights group Donor Direct Action said the campaign to end child marriage was another positive step after a law banning female genital mutilation (FGM) was passed last year.
The prevalence of child marriage in Nigeria has dropped by nine percent since 2003, according to data from UNICEF.
“However, its decline needs to be dramatically accelerated, particularly in the north of Nigeria,” Anber Raz of Donor Direct Action told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email from London.
“A lot of social and cultural change needs to happen, which may fall on the hands of local groups, who are under-resourced.”
Nigerian organisation Women’s Rights Advancement And Protection Alternative said the state also needed to address discrimination in access to education to prevent child marriage.
More than five million girls are out of school in Nigeria due to gender discrimination, said campaign group Girl Rising.
Source: Reuters
