For Nigeria’s girl bride, certain institutional, religious and cultural nuances have continued to stagnate her mental and physical growth. Life for her, is convulsively appalling; besides the trauma of stigmatization, neglect and abuse, it steals her future, violates her right with increased reproductive health risk.
This heart-wrenching experience is nothing compared to the psychological trauma of ostracism and betrayal she suffers by her parents, other family members and the society where she lives in.
Prevalence of girl child marriage, have remained an issue of great concern in Nigeria as in many parts of Africa and the world. There are still insufficient data to truly measure the extent of damage this socio-cultural malaise may have done to the psyche of Nigeria girl brides.
Girl child marriage, according to GirlsNotBrides, has reached an all time high. Nigeria ranks 13th among the 20 countries with the highest rate of child marriages; 16 of them are African nations.
Child marriage still occurs in rural communities of Nigeria, especially in the northern region. Nigeria, a country of 180 million people in population, is made up of three major ethnic groups; the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
Mrs. Bose Ironsi, a sexual and reproductive right advocate, retired nurse mid-wife and social worker, also a trained psychologist, founder of Women’s Health And Rights Project( WRAHP ), an agency that deals with issues related to men and women’s health and rights, said “Child marriage is big of a problem in Nigeria.” She said “there is massive number of young girls being married off as bride”.
“It’s not what the child wants” she says bluntly.
Girls with no education tend to marry at an average of about 15 years, and end up confined to carrying out domestic chores and at risk of life threatening diseases. While age of marriage increase to 18 for girls with primary education. Average age of marriage for women with secondary education rises to about 21.
About huge number of empirical evidence which according to Mrs. Ironsi, shows that when girls and women become part of the economic drivers in any country, and can influence political decisions, the country’s development is certain. Along with the many humane and human components, including the moral aspect of it.
Despite the child right act which frowns at girl child marriage with formulations and implementations of gender sensitivity, equality and child development. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest nation, is yet to recover from the menace of girl child bride.
Sexual and reproductive right advocate, Ironsi Bose, painted a more disturbing picture of the situation when in her speech, said “many people are unaware of the gravity of the problem.” She said “countless women and girls still experience a blatant lack of rights, representation and resources.”
“They end up confined to carrying out domestic chores and at risk of life threatening diseases and psychological trauma,” she says.
Statistics on a local level, has shown that an average of 11.6 percent of adolescent girls aged 15-19 are married in the country. Twenty three percent are already mothers or pregnant with their first child while 47.6 percent of these girls have no primary education.
Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs and Development, Sen. Aisha Alhassan, has said “child marriage is extremely prevalent in the Northeast and Northwest geo-political zones of Nigeria.”
Women’s Health And Rights Project may be absolutely correct about the sufferings of these girls, pegging parental negligence as the overriding cause.
Ironsi blame parents for giving out their young girls in marriage, and not discussing issues about sexuality with them, as they needed to live up to expectation, establish a cordial relationship with them and teach them how to understand danger when it’s coming.
The sexual reproductive and right activist said Education shouldn’t be based on how to read and write or how to become a successful entrepreneurs alone, “they should be taught self development, leadership, family life, life skills,” “they need to understand what is sex, courtship, and implication of early sex.”
Psychological Dangers
However, marriage for a teenage girl whose stage in adolescence has not been completed, can lead to psychological deterioration, because her side level of maturity is not sufficient enough to help her cope with responsibilities that comes within the marriage.
DR Ralph Emeka Ogbolu, clinical psychiatrist and coordinator of the suicide research and prevention initiative at Lagos University Teaching Hospital ( LUTH ), Lagos Nigeria, said “as human beings in normal psychological development, we move from one stage to another, previous learning experience help us develop on more learning experience as we grow older, the same thing with the development of the mind.”
“A child who cannot seat will now begin to run, everything follows a stage, the same thing with the development of the mind at that stage, the child’s mental development would have reached the stage where she can cope with marital conflicts, pressures and responsibilities”. He added.
Traumatic experience
Traumatic experience of early married on a girl bride, leaves her with deep wounds beyond the psychological trauma, the child would have to face the problem of child bearing.
A recent survey has shown that early marriage makes girl brides stand risk of developing mental disorder, anxiety depression, drug addiction and a whole lot of psychologically related problems. Dr Ralph believes that early marriage should not be managed but totally discouraged because of its traumatic impact on the girl child.
Psychological Complications And Therapy
Psychological complication from early marriage can be so devastating on the girl child, when she develops psychological complications she would beging to decompensate, and would no longer be able to function in performing her role as a wife.
The clinical psychologist said anxiety and depression are mood disorder which have to do with victim feeling unhappy and finds nothing to be happy about, because some certain hormones in the body have changed, due to a reduced level of the chemicals in the brain. And would obviously show that something significant has happened in that life before the brain begins to react to this chemical leading to anxiety or depression.
Girl child marriage is no doubt, fuelled by poverty, ignorance, insecurity, poor educational attainment, strong religious traditions and the prevailing culture of male dominance in the affairs of society.
Tackling the menace
Nigeria’s acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, in 2016, launched a campaign against child marriage–a programme that has immense sensitization, to curtail the spread of child marriage within the African nation.
In 2003, Nigeria passed a Child Rights Act, which sets the age of marriage at 18 years-old. However, only 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states have taken concrete steps to implement the minimum age of marriage.
Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and Minister of women affairs during a Campaign to end Child Marriage in Nigeria.
Although, Nigeria’s 1999 constitution does not establish a minimum age for marriage. But contains a bill of rights that protects the right to freedom of association, privacy and religion among others, including freedom from discrimination based on sex. Nigeria became the 16th country to join the African Union Campaign to end child marriage, the policy demands that a girl child reaches the age of 18 years before she could be married.
Eradicating child marriage, Barrister Paul Mashote, a human rights lawyer, said “there are many steps Nigeria’s federal government can take, with policy formulations and implementations”.
Barrister Mashote highlighted antidotes to ending girl child marriage as; early education, religious sensitization and promoting awareness via social cultural methodology.
Mr. Paul painted a disturbing picture about enforcement of relevant laws prohibiting early marriage, “it’s one thing to have laws, it’s another thing for you to have enforcement of such laws,” he said “when you have laws without enforcement, such laws are like toothless dogs”.
In northern Nigeria, parents have complained that the quality of education is so poor that schooling cannot be considered a viable alternative to marriage for their daughters. The human rights lawyer, suggested that the Nigerian government should create an enabling environment with a system that promote free education, if it’s any serious in ending child marriage, “knowledge they say is power, the federal government to stop some vices, you don’t throw money out to the people, the best thing to do is to create measures whereby such act would be avoided”, he said.
“There is need for us to educate our girls and parents, it is the duty of the government to provide free education for the citizenry, but if they are not going to do that, then we should have None Governmental Organizations( NGOs ) that would sponsor it.” He added.
With the strong grip of sociocultural practices promoting girl child marriage in Nigeria, more action is needed to prevent thousands of girls from being married off in the coming years. Implementation of laws and policies that frowns at it and at the same time protects the rights of the child as well as protecting them from violence and abuse is of great importance.
Valentine Iwenwanne is a Nigerian freelance journalist.
He tweets @lovableval
