CHILD MARRIAGES IN NIGERIA: A CURSE OR A BLESSING  

MEANING AND PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE: Marriage is the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman). Marriage is a powerful creator and sustainer of human and social capital for adults as well as children, about as important as education when it comes to promoting the health, wealth, and well-being of adults and communities. It also provides an opportunity to grow in selflessness as you serve your wife and children. Marriage is more than a physical union; it is also a spiritual and emotional union. This union mirrors the one between God and His Church. Three Gifts of Marriage: COMPANIONSHIP, PASSION & PURPOSE. The three pillars of a relationship and specifically a marriage is: Validation, Acceptance and Respect. All three of these pillars are mutually dependent on one another and provide a solid sounding board from which we can maintain healthy, functional and successful marriage relationships. 

CHILD MARRIAGE 

Child marriage refers to any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child. Child marriage has deep and lasting impacts on women throughout their lives. It prevents them from making their own life choices, disrupts their education, subjects them to violence and discrimination, and denies their full participation in economic, political, and social life. Child marriage is a problem with complex magnitudes and consequences. In Nigeria, an estimated 44% of girls in Nigeria are married before their 18th birthday and the country, also, records the 11th highest rate of child marriage (UNICEF 2013). 

Apart from its micro consequences on fertility, health, and well being, child marriage has far-reaching macroeconomic and sustainability consequences for Nigeria; as an outcome of child marriage, births increase, and the population explosion undermines the government’s ability to effectively plan and mobilize resources for sustainable development. Who are more prone? The girls who have low levels of education, limited or absent peer networks, restricted mobility and less access to mass media such as T.V., radio and newspapers as compared to boys are more prone to child marriages. The problems include soaring birth rates, grinding poverty and malnutrition, high illiteracy and infant mortality, and low life expectancy, especially among rural women. High fertility rate is attributed to an early marriage i.e., the earlier a time a woman marries, the more likely she is to give birth to a larger number of children, consequently placing a high demand on her health. On the other hand, as soon as the marriage happens, young brides are forced to prove their fertility after marriage and to give birth to children, especially sons. A young girl with minimal or no education, raised to be submissive and subservient, married to an older man, has little ability to negotiate sexual activity. 

REASONS FOR CHILD MARRIAGE IN NIGERIA INCLUDE; 

1. Poverty 

2. Gender inequity 

3. Traditions and customs 

4. Weak legislative 

5. Institutional structures 

6. Conflict and Political instability. 

A. Poverty: Even today in rural areas many females and female children are denied their equality to common resources when a family is poor. Female members, mainly female children are victimized by poverty of the family. A poor family usually jeopardizes female children. Every chance is opted so that the burden of a female child is avoided. So poverty is one of the reasons why families naturally resort to child marriages to avoid all sorts of burden of a female child. 

B. Conflict and Political instability: Social security is one of the major social factors why child marriages happen. Many people have this perception that a married woman is much safer from societal offences than an unmarried woman.

Unmarried women are viewed with ill intentions that lead to crimes against them. So to be secure from these offenses, assaults, teasing against unmarried girls, their parents are in a hurry to marry their daughters soon after she attains puberty or even before that. Usually families discriminate between boys and girls. In investment on education, male children of the house are considered as the future assets and economic base of the house that will work and earn money whereas female children are considered as a burden as they do not need to work and have to look after the household chores before and after marriage. Due to these reasons female children are given less or no priority. Child marriage has been found to have negative impacts on the children's education, health, as well as on their dignity and integrity. Child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their lives and health. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school. They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, which are eventually passed down to their own children, further straining a country’s capacity to provide quality health and education services. Child brides often become pregnant during adolescence, when the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth increases – for themselves and their infants. The practice can also isolate girls from family and friends and exclude them from participating in their communities, taking a heavy toll on their physical and psychological well-being. Because child marriage impacts a girl’s health, future and family, it imposes substantial economic costs at the national level, too, with major implications for development and prosperity. 

Generally, marriage brings a dowry to the bride’s family. It is seen that the younger the girl, the higher the dowry. Therefore, sooner the economic burden of raising the girl the dowry is lifted. Finally, parents feel proud in the society by marrying their daughter to a “good” family in terms of social status. There is a common belief among the parents that marrying the daughters young should protect them from rape, premarital sexual activity, unintended pregnancies, and sexually transmitted infections, especially human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and AIDS. Which is false cause they tend to forget about her Health, cause it Worsen the health of girls due to maximum workload at home i.e. engaged in cooking, grass cutting. Girls' became pregnant early in spite of maturity and led to maternal and child mortality rate. Girls' faced domestic violence from mother in law at home. Most of them suffer from sexually transmitted infection, pregnancy induced hypertension, premature delivery, high incidence of miscarriages and stillbirths. UNICEF (2011) focused on the following collective and individual attitudes and beliefs that led to compel girls for the marriage before the age of 18 years. Unmarried girls are considered a liability to family honor. Child marriage is a way to ensure chastity and virginity of the bride, thus avoiding potentially dishonoring of the family. Dowry perpetuates child marriage as it encourages parents to marry off their girls early to avoid an increase in the high cost of livelihood (some countries more educated girls usually require a higher dowry). Girls are considered an economic burden for their family of origin and a property that belongs to the marital family. Hence, the tendency is to marry girls as early as possible and reduce investment in their daughters. Investing in girls‟ education is not considered worthy as girls will be moving to the groom’s household and will be employed in household chores. On the other hand, the limited education and livelihood options for girls lead to marriage being one of the few options for girls‟ future. 

The study expressed that parents generally marry girl before the age of 18 years because of social prestige/pressure, responsibility to marry off, fear of maintaining the family, to lessen the economical burden, social prestige/pressure and girls are considered as liability to family honor. They also expressed that child marriage especially occurs in rural communities with poor, illiterate, migrant, unemployment and high population of girls. It mostly found in Dalit and Muslim communities. They further expressed that the major causes of rate of child marriage in Nigerian society were lack of awareness, less access to media, low knowledge level of government policy, investment to girls taken as waste of resources, fear from unmarried, and reduce the cost of wedding ceremonies and weak law enforcement. 

CONSEQUENCES OF CHILD MARRIAGE 

Child marriage consequences isolation, depression, sexually transmitted infection, cervical cancer, infant and maternal mortality. After the marriage girls have to do the role of wife, domestic worker, as well as mother at their husband’s household). During my research I observed that husbands are generally older than the girls due to the high rate of poverty in Nigeria. Due to the huge age gap between husband and wife there is difference in mutual understanding, resulted the girls rejected, isolated, and depressed while girls are immature, and due to that high frequency of child and maternal death occur. Generally, husbands infected the wives. One side girls always tried to prove their fertility and for that they had high frequency of unprotected intercourse with their husbands while other side either husbands had prior sexual partners or polygamous. 

Finally, the girls’ virginal status and physical immaturity of girls increase the risk of HIV transmission secondary to hymnal, vaginal, or cervical lacerations. Other sexually transmitted infections like herpes simplex virus type 2, gonorrhea and Chlamydia are also common infrequent transmission and there is a high chance of the girls’ vulnerability to H I V. High death rates found due to eclampsia, postpartum hemorrhage, sepsis, HIV infection, malaria, and obstructed labor. Girls below the age of 18 years have small pelvises and they are not ready for childbearing. So, morbidity and mortality rate are seen higher due to the young mothers’ poor nutrition, physical and emotional immaturity, and lack of access to social and reproductive services, and higher risk for infectious diseases. In this regards, UNICEF (2011) has also pointed out that child marriage has a bad effects on both the child and society and also exposed to higher risk of domestic violence and abuse, increased economic dependence, denial of decision-making power, inequality at home that further perpetuates discrimination and low status of girls/women. Child marriage is directly impacting educational opportunities of young people of Nigeria. Once girls’ get married they drop out from school and started to take care of their in-laws at home and producing children. Child marriage and early pregnancy affects women’s general health, their productivity, job opportunities and prospects for escaping poverty. 

Therefore, it was found that the child marriage directly impacted the girls rather than the boys. Nigeria’s rates of child marriage are some of the highest on the African continent. Although the federal Child Rights Act (CRA, 2003) prohibits marriage below age 18, the Nigerian constitution contains provisions which appear to conflict with this position. States with Islamic legal systems have also failed to adopt both the federal law and 18 as the age of majority for marriage. Some southern states which have adopted this position have failed to take adequate steps to carry it out. “It is disturbing that almost two decades after the Child Rights Act was passed, Nigerian girls are still being forced into child marriages,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Nigerian states should urgently act to adopt, implement, and align existing laws with the provisions of the Child Rights Act, which criminalizes marriage before the age of 18 and protects girls’ rights.” Imo State, a predominantly Igbo Christian state in southeastern Nigeria, adopted the Child Rights Law in 2004. 

But child marriage is an ongoing problem. Girls interviewed said that their families were the main drivers of their marriage, in many cases against their will. In the Sharia-legislated Kano State, the rates of child marriage are some of the highest in the country. 

In February, the Kano State Assembly voted to adopt the Child Protection Bill, but Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has yet to assent to it. State legislators should ensure that the final version of the law guarantees adequate protections for girls, including recognizing 18 years as the age of majority as set out in African regional and international law. Human Rights Watch found that married girls in Imo and Kano states are denied their fundamental rights to education, a safe dwelling, and freedom from violence, and often do not have access to adequate health care. Without strong regulatory protections for girls, families force them into early marriage for several reasons, including religious and traditional practices and to avoid the social stigma over teen pregnancy. Some girls interviewed said they have tried to escape their forced marriages. One girl married at 14 had run away six times in three years but family members returned her to her husband each time while some stated child marriage is a curse to the society not only the girl child suffer it but the society follow suit. 

SUGGESTIONS: 

There are certain suggestions which can be adopted in order to lessen child marriages: 

• Develop strong support systems to keep girls in school. Provide scholarships where necessary and encourage teachers to support girls. 

• Strengthen and establish community networks and partnerships involving girls clubs, teachers, elders, local government officials, women and youth groups, community and religious leaders, etc. that jointly work towards ending early marriage. 

• Strengthen the role of the judicial system particularly the police, judges, and persecutors through training on enforcement of the law against early marriage. 

• Efforts should be made to give-up the factors motivating child marriages, all efforts should aim at changing the gender biased attitudes of parents and society by imparting proper education on one hand and eradicating poverty on the other.  

CONCLUSION  

Child Marriages are considered as one of the social menace that cannot be curbed easily without the support of the society. There have been demands to make child marriages void under the Prohibition of Child Marriages Act since a long time, but Nigeria society is complicated and complex and making child marriages void will only jeopardize the rights of women who are the victims of child marriage. Many a times the parents of the girl child forcibly marries their daughters to some elder man so that that person can give some money to the girl’s family and from that money their financial condition can turn better. 

Child Marriage has been a curse to the society as it affects the growth of the girl child whose impact on the society is also required, but due to the rate of illiteracy and poverty the girl child suffers a lot in raising a child who later in future will be prone to the same life of his mother if proper upbringing is not taken on the child. The incidence of child marriage is really one of the serious and important issues regarding the child protection because still it is happening throughout the world in 21st century. It is mostly seen in South Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is also alarming us, the incidence of child marriage is higher in Nigeria while comparing with other Muslims countries too.