As the controversy over the law on underage marriage rages on in the country, different sides have taken stands on the sensitive issue, with none ready to shift ground.
Besides the social, cultural and legal aspects of this controversial law, the area that those who don’t see anything wrong in children getting married and having babies, need to consider seriously is the health and medical implications. Perhaps, they need to take a trip to the nearest VVF centre in the country. For the uninformed, these centres are places where victims of Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) and Recto Vaginal Fistula are treated and rehabilitated. VVF is a devastating medical condition characterized by an abnormal opening between the vagina and the urinary bladder that results from unrelieved prolonged obstructed labour, usually caused by an underdeveloped pelvic girdle.
In most cases, the girl’s injured pelvic tissue breaks down, leaving a hole or fistula between the bladder and vagina which results in continuous leaking of urine and or faeces. In many cases, these victims, due to the smell they give off, are abandoned by families and friends and live in isolation, ostracized from the rest of society.
VVF is a negative fallout of early marriages and child pregnancies.
A colleague of mine who did a story on this serious life-threatening medical condition some years ago visited a few of the centres while researching the story. He came back with tales of pain, misery and human suffering beyond belief. He said most of the girls at the centre were condemned to living as outcasts in their society as they had been rejected and abandoned by their families and friends ‘including the husbands who put them in their miserable condition in the first place.’ What he saw, he stated made him weep. Now this my colleague is a hardened, tough-as-nails journalist who has seen a lot in the course of his work and is not easily moved. So for him to react in such a manner shows the extent of the horrible condition in which these poor girls find themselves.
One phrase readily comes to mind in this matter and which is: ‘You can’t cheat nature’. Nature knows best and that is why it takes its time to prepare a female’s body for the arduous role it has been created for- that of ‘replenisher of the species’. It’s a woman’s role to reproduce so that the world will always be filled with people. Note that I used the term ‘woman’ and not child.
If nature had intended children to have babies, their bodies would have been fully formed from birth or at an early age say 8 or 10. But you don’t have to be a medical doctor to know that at the age of 10, a girl child’s body is still growing. At this stage, her reproductive organs are not yet developed enough to cope with the rigors of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood which every woman who has undergone the experience will tell you is ‘no child’s play,’ or a picnic.
Even animals and plants respect this salient law of nature. You don’t see a baby goat mating and giving birth. The same with chickens, dogs, cats, birds and other members of the animal kingdom. Their young are allowed to mature first before reproducing. Yet humans who are superior to beasts in the jungle, always do everything to contravene nature’s laws, with disastrous consequences.
Some men, knowing fully well the terrible consequences of ‘babies having babies’ still derive joy in marrying children as young as their great-grand children’s age. They hide under the cloak of religion, culture and societal norms to perpetuate this inhuman act on these vulnerable children. The result of this practice which is more widespread in the country than you can imagine, is there for all to see.
Recently, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zainab Maina, disclosed that Nigeria has the highest incidences of VVF in the world with an estimated 400,000 to 800,000 cases with 20,000 new cases added each year.
She stated that VVF and Rector Vaginal Fistula are serious health problems in the developing world, including Nigeria where it contributes greatly to the country’s unacceptable high maternal mortality.
This is a huge number of our youngsters whose lives have been truncated at an early age due to no fault of theirs but being born in a society where a female is a ‘disposable commodity.’ She can be married off at 11 and divorced or abandoned at 14 when VVF strikes and no-one cares. We live in a truly evil society.
There is one question Nigerians need to ask our ‘distinguished’ Senators, most of whom are fathers and grandfathers- will any of them (including unrepentant child bride practitioners
Iike Senator Yerima) give out their 13 year old child in marriage to a 70 year-old Papa? I bet the answer is a resounding No! Many of them with school age children have their kids schooling abroad in some of the best schools in the world. Yet due to perverse desires, selfishness and crass ignorance, refuse to protect the weak and helpless in the society.
Renouncing this obnoxious law so as to protect our young girls against predatory older men who destroy their lives in the name of early marriages, has nothing to do with religion as no religion condones human misery in any form. It is about justice, human rights and the well-being of our vulnerable children who need to be educated and nurtured to grow up as responsible adults. Not groomed to be a senile, old man’s plaything and sex object!
