By Halima Oji
“Right now in society, a woman can’t just do something because she wants to. She is someone’s mother, wife or daughter or girlfriend. She cannot just be a person, an individual with wants and needs of her own. We have been sacrificed by society”
– Berivan Elif Kilic (Mayor of Kocakoy, Turkey)
Islam remains for some, a rigid religion that promotes amputation, stoning to death, suicide bombings and child marriages. For others, a way of life, that re-calibrates our understanding of society, through a peaceful belief system older than man. In other words, it has become different things to different people.
But society remains the same. So does human biology, and whether we like it or not amputations, stoning and child marriages will remain relics of an old Islamic age. It is without doubt that most interpretations that can be derived from Islamic teachings promulgate early marriage. But it is becoming quite obvious, that under present circumstances, especially in a country with challenges such as Nigeria, early marriage before the age of 18 will undeniably remain damaging to the girl child. And this is not rocket science.
Several strategies have been employed to keep young girls in school in different parts of the north, each designed with a major flaw: they neglect the correlation between the need to get married and the economic status of these girls. One must be able to realize and accept the relationship between these two, and how it affects their education. In other words, the more economically stable a girl child is, the lesser the chances of being married of as a child and consequently the more education she gets.
According to the UN, Nigeria has over ten million out of school children. A staggering 60% of these are girls and a majority of them, are from the northern region. The NBS Multiple Indicators Clusters report in 2011 estimated that girls with primary education were twice likely to get married off before 18 than those with secondary or higher education. More disturbing was that girls, with no education were three times more likely to get married off before 18. The report puts the total number of early marriage before the age of 15 at 17.6 percent and marriages before 18 is 39.9 percent.
The challenges go beyond re-structuring social beliefs, there is also legislation involved. Developing policies or forcing states like Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Kastina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara to adopt the Nigeria Child Act of 2003 which sets a national marriage age at 18years, will also mean shelving the more regionally adopted Sharia law. This technically translates into religious intrusion.
But if a less religiously tense policy is developed, one that doesn’t compel the northern axis to shun its belief systems by forcefully adopting the Act, but advocates for free and perhaps compulsory education for the girl child, these complexities could be managed. This task is not one that legislators must bear alone.
CEO of CSR Children Toyin Olakankpo, in her article on ending child marriages with the theme ‘Addressing the Cynics, Amongst Other Things’ pointed out that it would be equally important to engage strong female role models of Muslim and Northern descent to push this advocacy forward.
It is undeniable now that strong, powerful, and educated Muslim Nigerian women will be required to raise their voices, in a global campaign to end child marriage in Nigeria and Africa. Celebrities such as Angelina Jolie have teamed up with global charity organizations in the past to advocate for African issues. But the campaign to end child marriage in Africa must be equally driven by Muslim women, as it has been done by the more liberal and predominately Christian South and the Western World. Nigeria will need its educated Muslim community to talk about these issues. Young girls and women who have gone through the difficulties of early marriages inclusive but not limited to poverty, domestic violence and in some instances fistula need their respect and life restored.
Pet projects of building schools by the wives of Public Officials can be a strong part of this movement as well. The socio-economic situation in several parts of Northern Nigeria cannot afford to sacrifice more lives. The onus to ending child marriage is on the approach, and this will be a difficult task, but a task nonetheless un-avoidable or impossible.
The idea that a child can be married can be argued under several religious platforms as violating core Islamic belief systems, and this may be true. But stealing public funds meant for human capital development, accumulating excessive wealth at the expense of millions of people in poverty, and flamboyancy as displayed by Muslim politicians from Nigerians northern axis are equally un-Islamic. Especially when on remembers that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) lived a life of humility and nobility.
Some may ask why go through all the trouble. Why challenge age old religious conventions and spark further political rancor. The answer is simple; the installed configuration is not working, and beyond that, Nigerian must, like the rest of the developed world embrace a new value for the human life, especially the people who give this life, women.
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