Today, I am proud of the outpouring of reactions following the passage of the Senate’s Bill making the age of consent in Nigeria 13. This is ridiculous comparing it with most European countries which is fixed at 16. The fact that Nigeria would even go that low considering the strict moral values we thought we had is absurd.
Child marriage has been legalised in Nigeria, everything our mothers and grand mothers have fought for, to guarantee us a right to education, a right to determine and decide for ourselves our path in life, has been swiftly destroyed. One question remains: Where are the female members of the Senate?
What is the first Lady doing about this?
Mothers, sisters, daughters in every walk of life, we all need to recognise that we deserve
better, that we should be valued more than the amount we can fetch by being sold at the altar, that we are more than our fashion choices, no matter how elaborate, that we are more than the incredible pressure society puts on women to seek existence and outright fulfilment in marriage.
Our lives as women are worth something. It might seem like a moot point. But believe me when I say that there are women, even powerful women in Nigeria and Africa today, who need to realise this because they are the only ones who can truly champion the rights of the girl-child. I ask the female members of both Houses today, how many of their daughters marry at 13.
I ask the wealthy, carefree politicians in Abuja today, how many have given away their precious brood to men three or four times their age who would be free to use them as they see fit. Most host lavish weddings which fill the society pages of our magazines and the pictures tell an interesting story: one of political and business marriages to secure benefits and further hoard economic opportunities by concentrating them in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
It is the daughters of the poor and the uneducated that we expect to marry at 13 because they have no voice and more so because their families are in desperate need of money. So their innocence, their right to dream is butchered on the altar of some of our lawmaker’s perversities, who seek out poor
young girls and turn them into playthings.
Fulfilling Islamic traditions to suite religious viewpoint does not give anybody the right to think such view point should be accepted by the general public. Nigeria is not and will never be an Islamic nation.
Child marriage has been legalised in Nigeria, everything our mothers and grand mothers have fought for, to guarantee us a right to education, a right to determine and decide for ourselves our path in life, has been swiftly destroyed. One question remains: Where are the female members of the Senate?
What is the first Lady doing about this?
Mothers, sisters, daughters in every walk of life, we all need to recognise that we deserve
better, that we should be valued more than the amount we can fetch by being sold at the altar, that we are more than our fashion choices, no matter how elaborate, that we are more than the incredible pressure society puts on women to seek existence and outright fulfilment in marriage.
Our lives as women are worth something. It might seem like a moot point. But believe me when I say that there are women, even powerful women in Nigeria and Africa today, who need to realise this because they are the only ones who can truly champion the rights of the girl-child. I ask the female members of both Houses today, how many of their daughters marry at 13.
I ask the wealthy, carefree politicians in Abuja today, how many have given away their precious brood to men three or four times their age who would be free to use them as they see fit. Most host lavish weddings which fill the society pages of our magazines and the pictures tell an interesting story: one of political and business marriages to secure benefits and further hoard economic opportunities by concentrating them in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
It is the daughters of the poor and the uneducated that we expect to marry at 13 because they have no voice and more so because their families are in desperate need of money. So their innocence, their right to dream is butchered on the altar of some of our lawmaker’s perversities, who seek out poor
young girls and turn them into playthings.
Fulfilling Islamic traditions to suite religious viewpoint does not give anybody the right to think such view point should be accepted by the general public. Nigeria is not and will never be an Islamic nation.
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