The Nigerian Child

The past weeks have been laden with many contentious issues. I’m writing this after much study partly due to the ASUU strike, which is one of the issues. My home state, Rivers State House of Assembly fracas is another and more recently the #ChildNotBride situation.

Within the past week I bumped into news of circa 600,000 cases of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula(VVF) in Nigeria. Here’s a link to article on VVF’s prevalence and here’s one educating us on VVF.

With the revelations from the article, Nigeria has a largesse of between 20% and 40% of the world’s VVF cases.

Following discussions with friends in the medical profession and personal studies, the common age of women or girls who suffer from this is between 12-20, young mothers and victims of rape.

Why this prevalence in Nigeria? What can be done to control and reduce this to a minimum? This questions beg to be answered.

By chance, last week Tuesday in the seating of the Senate on Constitutional Review in the section 29 which concerns Renunciation of Citizenship a little row was sparked over the age at which a married woman who wishes to renounce her citizenship is recognised by law. The details are here.

Remembering the age range in which VVF is prevalent, twitter was rife with campaigns, misinformed howbeit, that stated a bill had been passed endorsing under-age marriage. This was not the case as no such bill existed.

_Why this prevalence in Nigeria?_

This prompted me to study the age of consent for marriage according to our constitution, The Marriage Act. Sections 11 (b) and 18 talk of the preliminaries to Marriage and Consent to Marriage with respect to age. The possibility of consent being given by parents or guardians (think of a wicked step-mother) shocked me. No concrete age was set.

N.B.: Marriages under Customary law are not accountable for. All traditions I know of in Nigeria do not have a minimum age either.

This means I could marry off my daughter if I deem fit, or if I leave her in the care of my brother and travel abroad, he or his wife can do so.

This exposes young girls and women to the risk of early childbirth vis-à-vis an increased probability of getting VVF.

What can be done to control and reduce this to a minimum?

Our constitution in my opinion should regard the well-being of its citizenry highly and should put in place legislation where possible to protect/ensure that well-being.

There exists the Child Rights Act of 2003 which intends to protect the rights of the child both male and female. However, it has not been adopted in all states of the Federation.

Here’s my suggestion.

. The Child Rights Act should be domesticated and adopted in all states of Nigeria as soon as possible.

. The Marriage Act should be reviewed to define strictly the age of consent, and also should protect against forced marriages.

. Legislation on Statutory Rape should be put in place.

. Our Customary law should be reviewed by the leaders of our different ethnic groups to protect the Rights of the Child. Most marriages in our country are still by Customary law.

These are my suggestions, more can be added. I pray this reaches out to people and helps spur change.

I’m Sokari Austine Tams II, I stand for the #ChildRightsAct #ChildNotBride #ChildNotGroom #ChildNotSlave #ChildNotGift.