Topic: Eradicating Child Marriage
Country: Nigeria
Delegate Name: Kelsey Dorgan
School: Mattawan High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Nigeria position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
Child marriage has an endless number of negative side effects including; less education which in turn makes the child economically vulnerable, birth defects, sexually transmitted diseases, amongst others. So why would such an act still be practiced in many countries? To put it simply the parents often believe they are helping their child. Parents will arrange marriages in hopes of giving their daughter a better life especially if she does not show excellence in what schooling she does receive. While child marriage affects both sexes, girls are disproportionately affected as they are the majority of the victims. Their overall development is compromised, leaving them socially isolated with little education, skills and opportunities for employment. Poorer nations show greater occurrences of child marriage for a multitude of reasons; poverty, lack access to education, and culture. In article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it states “marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending parties.” However, this is not the case in many of the developing countries.
Nigeria, as well as many additional African countries, struggle significantly with child marriage. The numbers speak for themselves, for one in three girls marry before the age of eighteen and twenty percent are married by the age fifteen. Also among married girls aged 15–19, 62 percent have already given birth. While many charity and action groups have made the effort to halt this growing issue no real impact has been made. When the Child Rights Act was passed in 2003, raising the age of marriage to eighteen, there was the expectation it would decrease the number of child marriages, however that was not the case. Federal law may be implemented differently at the state level, and currently, only a few of the country’s 36 states have begun developing provisions to execute the law. Nigeria struggles to implement these laws as a result of the three systems that continue to fight for power-civil, customary, and Islamic.
The root of this issue lies with education. While the government may not be able to directly stop every child from marrying at such a young age they can teach them the risks. Also if the children are aware of the benefits to staying in school and pursuing all the education possible in their community it is likely they will not be rushed into a marriage to compensate for what they are lacking in education. Nigeria would also like to propose that state-level authorities impose the federal law that establishes eighteen as the legal age to marry while still working to respect cultural and traditional beliefs.
