The story of three young Nigerian girls set to change the constitution on early marriages
By Samuel Abuya
A 2018 UNICEF report indicated that Nigeria is one of the countries in Africa with the highest number of child brides with more than a third of young girls ending up in early marriages and more than 22 million girls married or married off before they celebrate their 18th birthday.
It is against this backdrop that three young girls in Nigeria have set out to challenge and change the narrative of in a country where there is no constitutionally set age limit on what can be regarded as child marriage, and one in which one of its top politicians have previously been accused of marrying minors.
Temitayo Asuni, 15, Kudirat Abiola, 15 and Susan Ubogu, 16, are Nigerian schools girls who have set their eyes on changing the country’s constitution and save young girls as far as marriage is concerned.
The young girls started an online petition that they have been pushing much as they fully understand that it is, and will be, a tall order for them to achieve their purpose especially in getting lawmakers on board to seal the legal loopholes that many men in Nigeria have been using when marrying young girls.
According to Abiola, a girl determined to become a children’s rights activist in future, early marriage is an emotional issue. “How do you give a young girl such a responsibility and have her education, friends, and family taken away from her?” she poses.
While speaking to CNN, Abiola confirmed that she is inspired by her civil rights activist aunt, Hafsat Abiola.
On the other hand, Ubogu, who learned coding at the tender age of ten years, has a software company already with two games available on Google Play Store at her age.
Ubogu says and strongly believe there shouldn’t be any girl who is denied her right to education.
Asuni,who is one of the three young girls, says she has been following and reading newspaper articles about young girls married off to old men, enough to be their fathers, since her elementary school days. She says she always felt sort of helpless until she met her two friends, Abiola and Ubogu.
The girls have tailored their “Never Your Fault” campaign around a clause in Section 29 of the Nigerian constitution that, according to them, ‘backs underage marriage’.
While Nigeria’s 2003 Child Rights Act puts it clear that children under the age of 18 cannot get married, a sub-section of the country’s constitution tackling citizenship says “any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age.”
An attempt to scrap off that section, which is typically a loophole in the Nigerian constitution in terms of underage marriages, was met with a lot of opposition at the country’s Senate in 2013.
“If you are 11 and you are married, you are deemed to be a woman. This is a serious problem because we follow the constitution,” Abiola told CNN.
The young girls are petitioning lawmakers to raise the age of consent from 11 to 18 years; something which they believe will go a long way in criminalizing underage marriages in Nigeria.
By the time of going to press, more than 130,000 people had signed the online petition, change.org, which is addressed to the Federal Government of Nigeria. Plan International, a global child rights group, gave the girls support on their cause.
Ahmad Sani Yerima, a former Governor and now Senator, was accused in 2010 of marrying an underage saying the marriage was in line with Islamic Sharia laws. Yerima was, however, denied the bride who was 13 years old.
Africa Global News Publication
