CHILD MARRIAGE IN NEW DIMENSION - MUCH TO DO STILL

it was indeed a great trauma as I witnessed 14- and 15-years old breastfeeding their babies during my last agency development empowerment workshops for youth recently. I was always of the opinion that child marriage has been eradicated especially in the southern part of Nigeria, but it is so scary how it is rearing its ugly head in a new dimension.

In our effort to eradicate violence against women and girls in Nigeria, we embarked on a journey of developing the agency of village youths so that they could find their voices, discovering their power and equip to challenge the status quo that has been encouraging their intimidation as girl children.

We recruited 30 youths for 4-day extensive workshop in each of the communities. We recruited 18 girls and 12 boys for the workshop because recently we have decided to be including males in our workshops to prepare them to live a fulfilling life that would discourage them from perpetrating violence against girls. 

To our great amazement, out of the 18 girls recruited in one of the communities were 7 teenage mothers so young and fragile looking that I could not control my emotion when I saw them. I had to quickly excuse myself and went back to my car to cry a little to calm myself down before coming out to start the workshop.

In the course of the empowerment workshop, their stories were coming out as they were sharing at the workshop.

Story One

I was raped at the age of 13 by a 35-year-old man in our community and got pregnant. My mother blamed me, and my stepfather sent me out of the house that I should go to the man that got me pregnant and that was how I abandon my education and became a housewife. Though I am not happy with my situation, but I am helpless and no one to turn to but If I have the opportunity, I want to learn a vocation and start a business of my own that would make me financially independent.

Story two

I was raped by a man at the age of 15 and got pregnant, the man after living with him for two years sent me out after series of beating and I ran to this village to see if I could get some menial job to feed myself and my child. I am an orphan and the people I was living with did not want to see me again after I became pregnant. My vision is to go to school and be a Nurse, but I don't think that vision can be realized again. 

The stories of all the young mothers were so pathetic! We will be moving two of them to our newly acquired shelter by the middle of this month with their children. We have employed a grandmother that will be taking care of the children as the girls attend vocational training and school. We will continue to rescue as many as we can based on our capacity and truth as an organization and anyone that may want to collaborate with us to rescue these girls are welcome. we are going to resist child marriage coming back to our community in any way!