PROHIBITING CHILD MARRIAGE WILL BOOST THE GIRL-CHILDS HEALTH
A Nigerian organisation that focuses on women health and information has said addressing the issue of child marriage can enhance girls’ access to healthcare services, education and also reduce infant mortality. To achieve this, the group said it had initiated an advocacy that would promote the prohibition of child marriage in some communities in Agege and Mushin, Lagos State.
The group met with civil society organisations and the media recently in Lagos, to share its strategy as well as strengthen partnership that will signal a new dawn in this cause.
Speaking during the meeting, the Project Manager, Tolulope Aderibigbe, said the objective of its activism was to strengthen the capacity of community heads of Agege and Mushin northern settler communities to denounce the practice of child marriage in their communities.
To reduce child marriage in the state, she said her team would adopt a peer-to-peer approach to correct the negative mindset.
Aderibigbe said with the involvement of families, communities, governments and young people, the initiative would focus on proven strategies, including increasing girls’access to education and health care services, educating parents and communities on the dangers of child marriage while also enforcing laws that establish 18 as the minimum age of marriage.
“We realised that in dealing with entrenched customs and beliefs of people, a single organisation is not enough to put an end to it. That is why we want to collaborate with other bodies to ensure that we are able to dis-continue this practice in the northern settler communities in Lagos.
“Our background study shows us that areas like Agege and Idi-Oro have the highest prevalence of teenage pregnancy. As people move to settle down there, they move with their culture and exhibit those cultures forgetting that every land has laws that guide them. We discovered that on a weekly basis, young girls are forced to marry elderly men by their parents. This is prohibited under Lagos State Act, but because no one is implementing it; they see it as a norm,” she said.
In her presentation on child marriage, Adebanke Akinrimisi, said an estimated 23 million girls married before they reach 18, 14 per cent and 44 per cent of women aged 20-24 got married or in a union before they turned 15 and 18.
Statistics shows that Bauchi has the highest prevalence of 40.7 per cent, Sokoto with 32.1 per cent followed by Jigawa 26.9 per cent and Niger got 26.1 per cent.
