byAt 20, Esther Akan says she shoulders the burden of a 40-year-old and she does not look her age. As she strides through a bush path, on a sunny day in December 2021, with a basket on her head, her three-year-old daughter lets out a shrill scream.
“I regretted taking that decision . Instead of gaining, I am now suffering more than before,” Esther told PREMIUM TIMES. Four states with the highest incidence of child marriage in the south are Ogun, Oyo, Delta and Akwa Ibom, with 29 per cent, 23 per cent, 23 per cent and 22 per cent respectively, according to the UNICEF data.
She became pregnant at 16 and moved in with the man, Ernest Ukpe, a former schoolmate. There were no rites to formalise the union, but they were referred to as a couple nonetheless. “Even when he fell sick, there was no money to take him to hospital,” Esther said. A few months later, her newborn had a fever and died.Amid hardship, Esther relocated from the small apartment they lived in to be with her grandmother in her native village, Ikot Udo.Angelina’s Story
She narrated how things were difficult in her family after losing her father at a tender age and how she had to leave school then, at Primary six. “We have our own Child Right Law in Akwa Ibom State and the set age is 16 years,” the Deputy Director in the Akwa Ibom State Ministry of Justice who is also a Director in the Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Response Unit, Akwa Ibom State, Emem Ette, told PREMIUM TIMES.
“No parents should carry their child and say because you have impregnated my child, you should marry my child, it is not right. The law is against it and that is violence against person prohibition law, the law is very clear about early child marriage in the state,” Mrs Ette said. Mrs Emmanuel in 2015 launched the Family Empowerment and Youth Reorientation Programme to address the problem of teenage pregnancy.
“In Akwa Ibom, how do we protect the girl child? The government has put in place some legal framework to protect the child; we have the Child Right Act, the gender policy among others. We also have free and compulsory education, which embraces both the male and female children and at that point, every child is expected to be in school,” she told PREMIUM TIMES.
1. Akwa Ibom- Early marriage ocassioned by abandoned children wrongly termed witches 2. Enugu- Water scarcity 3. Abia- Poor infrastructure and salary payment 4. Ebonyi- Employment/ empowerment, Civil service welfare What the next administration should face headlong.
Pandemic of early marriage cut across all ethnic groups in Nigeria.
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