ABSTRACT
This research work explored the issue of early marriage in Nigeria. It shed light specifically on reasons behind its perpetuation, its harmful consequences, shows how it constitutes a barrier to education and enjoyment of human rights by girls and how it further threatens the development of the country. The findings from respondents and extensive reading of materials related to early marriage suggest that early marriage is due to various factors including among others, the search for economic survival, protection of young girls, peer group and family pressure, controlling female behavior and sexuality, wars and civil conflicts, socio-cultural and religious values. It is a violation of girls’ human rights as it deprives her from freedom, opportunity for personal development, and other rights. It is also a developmental challenge for population pressure, health care costs and lost opportunities of human development. It is a barrier to girls’ education as young girls drop out of school to get married which impacts negatively on the community as a whole and on the well-being of future generation. This practice stands in direct conflict with the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); such as the promotion of basic education, fight against poverty, the prevention of HIV/AIDS and reduction of maternal mortality rate in sub Saharan Africa and Nigeria in particular. To deal with the problem, a number of strategies have been suggested mainly for providing economic opportunities to young girls, promoting education of girls and using mass media to increase the awareness of the whole community about the consequences of early marriage on girls themselves, their family and on the community as a whole.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Birth, marriage and death are the standard trio of key events in most people’s lives. But only one ‘marriage’ is a matter of choice. The right to exercise that choice was recognized as a principle of law even in Roman times and has long been established in international human rights instruments. Yet many girls, and a smaller number of boys, enter into marriage without any chance of exercising their right to choose. Some are forced into marriage at a very early age. Others are simply too young to make an informed decision about their marriage partner or about the implications of marriage itself. They may have given what passes for ‘consent’ in the eyes of custom or the law, but in reality, consent to their binding union has been made by others on their behalf.
The assumption is that once a girl is married, she has become a woman – even if she is only 12. Equally, where a boy is made to marry, he is now a man and must put away childish things. While the age of marriage is generally on the rise, early marriage – marriage of children and adolescents below the age of 18 is still widely practiced. While early marriage takes many different forms and has various causes, one issue is paramount. Whether it happens to a girl or a boy, early marriage is a violation of human rights. The right to free and full consent to a marriage is recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and in many subsequent human rights instruments – consent that cannot be ‘free and full’ when at least one partner is very immature. For both girls and boys, early marriage has profound physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional impacts, cutting off educational opportunity and chances of personal growth.
For girls, in addition, it will almost certainly lead to premature pregnancy and childbearing, and is likely to lead to a lifetime of domestic and sexual subservience over which they have no control (Eboh, 1996).
Early marriage before the age of 18 is a violation of a number of international human rights charters and conventions such as 1989 Convention on The Rights of the Child (CRC), 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEFADW), the 1989 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of Women. However, for many young girls in developing countries, marriage is perceived as a means of securing their future and protecting them. Girls are forced into marriage by their families while they are still children in the hope that marriage will benefit them both financially and socially. On the contrary, early marriage violates the rights of children with often more negative consequences on the girls than the boys. This compromises their overall development, leaving them socially isolated with little or no education, skills and opportunities for employment and self -realization. These conditions ultimately make married girls more vulnerable to poverty. Young married girls are indeed a unique group, coming under great pressure on a number of fronts.