Imagine a child, a seven year old taking up duties and responsibilities as a wife; cooking, cleaning, washing clothes ( not just hers but also for an older man) and having sex!. I can’t but scream out loud when I try to imagine these things. A child is a child no matter how you look at it.
I remember at age seven, I would play with my siblings and friends, had dolls of different colours, sizes and hair do. I would practice “mummy in the kitchen” with tiny tins, cut grasses and put sand and water and start mixing, preparing a dish I thought was a brilliant recipe. I had responsibilities, yes I did. I listened to the news, read newspapers and school books, worked hard to pass my exams . I had so much fun growing up. What about you?.
Well, according to Damien McElroy, Child marriage is a fact of life for one-third of girls in Niger (some reports show it is in Nigeria too) but aid workers claim there has been a spike in families selling off daughters as they can no longer afford to feed.
Parents have told activists that while they are unhappy with selling their daughters to men for a price of a few goats or other livestock, the exhaustion of family food stocks meant they had no alternative.
Fatima Soumana, a child protection officer, said she had discovered the seven-year-old who had been married off to a cousin. Mrs Soumana said the family had been affected by a series of tragedies, including the death of the child’s mother while giving birth.
“The girl’s mother died in childbirth and I went to visit the family and to register the birth at the courthouse with an aunt and a seven-year girl old came with us” Mrs Soumana said. “When I asked who she was, the aunt told me she was her daughter-in-law. I realised that the young girl had been sold to the family and married off to their 20-year-old son.”
Launching a public appeal for £5 million to feed the stricken nation, the charity said that food shortages were affecting 6.4 million, with up to one million children at risk of starvation.
In a country where laws are regarded as a colonial imposition decades after independence from France, Mrs Soumana explained that the legal age for marriage is 15 for girls and 16 for boys.
“In reality girls are married off as young as seven years old,” she said. “There are many reasons for early child marriage but the food crisis is making it worse.”
Fatima Ismaghail, 13, was rescued from an arranged marriage in the Tera district of western Niger by a local judge.
“My father sold me to a man who was 20-years-old and my cousin. Nobody told me about it, and I never discussed it with my mother or my grandmother but I planned to run away if it went ahead,” she said. “I heard on the radio that young girls are losing their lives when their parents marry them off, because they have children when they are far too young and may die in childbirth. I was very afraid that this would happen to me.
“I don’t understand why my parents gave me away to be married so young but I would like to get married and have children when I grow up.”
Touayi Oumar, her mother, said she had felt powerless to stop the marriage.
Culled from the Telegraph.
Girls should be “Girls” not Brides. Let the child be a child.
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| courtesy Picasa |
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