CHILD MARRIAGE IN NIGERIA

 

Wasila Umar, a 14-year-old child bride, made news in April when she killed her husband and four of his friends through food poisoning.  Wasila’s case as a child bride was not the first but attracted public attention because it resulted to murder after 17 days of marriage to her husband. She alleged it was a forced marriage to a man she did not love and didn’t want to have relationship with. It was a violation of the right of the girl. The judge acquitted her. In the northern part of Nigeria, 43% of girls are married off before their 18th birthday. 17% are married before they turn 15 according to reports by UNICEF. The Child Rights Act of 2003 sets the national legal minimum age of marriage at 18. To be effective, however, state assemblies must take necessary measures to implement the Act, and to date, only 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states have taken concrete steps to execute the minimum age of marriage.

While data shows a 9% decline in the prevalence of child marriage since 2003, action is needed to prevent thousands of girls from being married in the coming years. If present trends continue, UNFPA estimates that 4,615,000 of girls will be married as children by 2030.  Child marriage is wrong because it exposes children to the risks of too-early pregnancy, child bearing, and motherhood before they are physically and psychologically ready. This could lead to death. This could also lead to risk of sexual violence and HIV infection. According to reports, One of the most commons causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries is pregnancy and child birth.  To further complicate matters, Nigeria has three different legal systems operating simultaneously—civil, customary, and Islamic—and state and federal governments have control only over marriages that take place within the civil system..
Most religions, over history, influenced the marriageable age. For example, Christian ecclesiastical law forbade marriage of a girl before the age of puberty. Hindu vedic scriptures mandated the age of a girl's marriage to be adulthood which they defined as three years after the onset of puberty. Jewish scholars and rabbis strongly discouraged marriages before the onset of puberty. In contrast, some Islamic marriage practices have permitted marriage of girls below the age of 10, because Sharia law is based in part on the life and practices of Muhammad, the Prophet. The Prophet married Aisha, his third wife, when she was about age six, and consummated the marriage when she was about age nine. Some mainstream Islamic scholars have suggested that it is not the chronological age that matters; marriageable age under Muslim religious law is the age when the guardians of the girl feel she has reached sexual maturity. Such determination of sexual maturity is a matter of subjective judgment, and there is a strong belief among most Muslims and scholars, based on Sharia, that marrying a girl less than 13 years old is an acceptable practice for Muslims

Wasila Umar, a 14-year-old child bride, made news in April when she killed her husband and four of his friends through food poisoning.  Wasila’s case as a child bride was not the first but attracted public attention because it resulted to murder after 17 days of marriage to her husband. She alleged it was a forced marriage to a man she did not love and didn’t want to have relationship with. It was a violation of the right of the girl. The judge acquitted her. In the northern part of Nigeria, 43% of girls are married off before their 18th birthday. 17% are married before they turn 15 according to reports by UNICEF. The Child Rights Act of 2003 sets the national legal minimum age of marriage at 18. To be effective, however, state assemblies must take necessary measures to implement the Act, and to date, only 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states have taken concrete steps to execute the minimum age of marriage.

While data shows a 9% decline in the prevalence of child marriage since 2003, action is needed to prevent thousands of girls from being married in the coming years. If present trends continue, UNFPA estimates that 4,615,000 of girls will be married as children by 2030.  Child marriage is wrong because it exposes children to the risks of too-early pregnancy, child bearing, and motherhood before they are physically and psychologically ready. This could lead to death. This could also lead to risk of sexual violence and HIV infection. According to reports, One of the most commons causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries is pregnancy and child birth.  To further complicate matters, Nigeria has three different legal systems operating simultaneously—civil, customary, and Islamic—and state and federal governments have control only over marriages that take place within the civil system..
Most religions, over history, influenced the marriageable age. For example, Christian ecclesiastical law forbade marriage of a girl before the age of puberty. Hindu vedic scriptures mandated the age of a girl's marriage to be adulthood which they defined as three years after the onset of puberty. Jewish scholars and rabbis strongly discouraged marriages before the onset of puberty. In contrast, some Islamic marriage practices have permitted marriage of girls below the age of 10, because Sharia law is based in part on the life and practices of Muhammad, the Prophet. The Prophet married Aisha, his third wife, when she was about age six, and consummated the marriage when she was about age nine. Some mainstream Islamic scholars have suggested that it is not the chronological age that matters; marriageable age under Muslim religious law is the age when the guardians of the girl feel she has reached sexual maturity. Such determination of sexual maturity is a matter of subjective judgment, and there is a strong belief among most Muslims and scholars, based on Sharia, that marrying a girl less than 13 years old is an acceptable practice for Muslims