Are Nigerian Senators Paedophiles?

 
Yesterday, the senate committee charged with the review of the Nigerian constitution passed an ammendment to nullify the previous age of 18 years as the legal minimum age at which a woman could marry (or be married off).in the country. This issue was raised by Senator Yerima Sani, who married a 13yr old Egyptian girl, despite the federal law.His reason for recommending the change, he said, was to put the constitution in accordance with certain aspects of Islamic law which permit marriage once a female has reached puberty.

Even though, this is just a draft of the amendments to be made. NOW is the time to be vocal. Now is the time for us to stand up and be counted before this amendment is passed into law.

Statistics of child brides

• Evidence shows that girls who marry early often abandon formal education and become pregnant.
•  Child brides are at risk of violence, abuse and exploitation (UNICEF, State of the World’s Children, 2009)
•  If a mother is under the age of 18, her infant’s risk of dying in its first year of life is 60 per cent greater than that of an infant born to a mother older than 19 (UNICEF, State of the World’s Children, 2009).
•  There is a strong correlation between the age of the mother and maternal mortality and morbidity. Girls ages l0-14 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than women aged 20-24.  Girls ages 15-19 are twice as likely to die. The vast majority of these deaths take place within marriage. In Cameroon, Ethiopia and Nigeria, maternal mortality among adolescents under 16 was found to be six times higher than for young women aged 20-24. (United Nations, 2001, End decade review).
• In sub-Saharan Africa, girls ages 15–19 years are 2–8 times more likely than boys of the same age to become infected with HIV.(Nawal M. Nour, affiliation: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachussetts, USA)
•  Women who marry younger are more likely to be beaten or threatened, and more likely to believe that a husband might sometimes be justified in beating his wife. (Jenson, R. and R. Thornton. 2003. �Early female marriage in the developing world', Gender and Development, Vol. 11, no. 2 pp. 9-19.