In the month October 2016 , the Emir of Katsina reportedly married a fourteen-year-old girl, assaulting her dignity and innocence in the process but our society hardly took notice. Child-bride marriage is so common in northern Nigeria that it is considered a normal way of life.
This is a matter that has serious consequences for the lives of young people. It should concern every citizen because it destroys the lives of our children. It stops girls from going to school to get an education, which in turn affects their prospects of getting good jobs and becoming financially independent later in life. These girls are more likely to develop abnormal connections between their vagina, bladder, and rectum during childbirth, which then causes them to become incontinent of feces and urine.
The resultant malodor very often leads to isolation and social ostracism or even divorce by their husbands who simply marry the next child-bride. It is a lot of psychological trauma for anybody to deal with let alone a teenage mother. These young mothers end up begging on the streets when their elderly husbands divorce them. Sadly, their children are left to the mercies of hostile step-mothers and may end up as street beggars just like their unfortunate mothers.
There must be continuous crusade and campaign against a girl child marriage. They dont know better and in most cases they are pushed into marriage against their wish and desire.
Dotun George
A motivational & public speaker. A social crusader, a life coach and a trainer
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