#CHILDNOTBRIDE

Going Against Islamic Law

"Every Nigerian should bow his or her head in shame because instead of crushing the head of the lustful beast that seeks to fornicate with our children, to steal their virtues and to destroy their future, what the Senate did the other day was to compromise with and cater for the filthy appetites and godless fantasies of a bunch of child molesters and sexual predators."
Femi Fani-Kayode, traditional chief, former cabinet minister, Nigerian government

Shariah law has been used as a heritage-honoured reason to ensure that a constitutional amendment on the age of consent for girls would not pass in Nigeria. An amendment to set the age when Nigerians could lawfully renounce citizenship, with more far-ranging implications because of its  implied link to the legally-supported marriageable age appropriateness for Nigerian girls.

The Nigerian Senate had voted to approve an amendment that would set the age at 18, bringing the clause in line with laws that legally set the age of consent for marriage and for voting; the age of majority. Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima protested the amendment, claiming it to assault Islamic law. "By Islamic law any woman that is married, she is of age, so if you now say she is not of age then it means that you are going against Islamic law", he claimed.

He forced a second vote which nullified the first, passing the amendment. Senators who had previously voted "yes" in agreement with setting the age at 18 experienced a sudden change of heart and the amendment failed in the final vote, to pass. Leaving the situation at an impasse; a Nigerian male must be 18 to legally renounce his citizenship. A Nigerian girl, married at 14, is legally entitled to renounce citizenship.

Had it gone the other way, the reverse would have resulted; it would have been illegal to force girls to marry before the age of majority; 18 years of age. "The government needs to stick with the age of consent being 18 and to work with communities in recognizing that a child is a child", insisted Iheoma Obibi of the Nigerian Feminist Forum which lodged a protest with the Gender and Constitutional Reform Network.

It is believed that over 50% of girls in the Muslim north of the country are forced into marriage at a young age, sold by their indigent parents in rural communities. Senator Yerima, 49, married the 14-year-old daughter of his Egyptian driver. He paid $100,000 for the child. Since Islamic law permits four wives at a time, he divorced a 17-year-old whom he had married at age 15. Activists demanded he be investigated and discharged from Parliament.

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons questioned him but concluded there was a lack of evidence to charge him. Besides, he had paid handsomely for the girl. It was recommended that the justice minister and attorney general investigate Senator Yerima for his violation of the country's 2003 Child Rights Act. "But nothing was done, he has got away with it", said Ms. Obibi.

The government's own statistics produce a high percentage of young girls suffering physical damage during childbirth. Maternity wards in the mostly Muslim north full of young mothers whose vaginas, uteruses and anal passages have been ruptured. Nigeria, according to the UN Children's Fund has 2% of the world's underage marriages, while 10% of girls suffer vesicovaginal fistula, leaving them incontinent, dripping urine and feces.

Their impairment results in divorce and abandonment, leaving them to beg on the streets, or to turn to prostitution to enable them to fend for themselves. An online petition has been initiated by a human resources manager to overturn the Senate vote, at #ChildNOTBride.

#CHILDNOTBRIDE