TELL IT

BY EBUN SESSOU Barrister Itoro Eze-Anaba, a human rights activist, explains the legal implications of child marriage.    What is your opinion on the 1999 Constitution which says 'any woman who is married shall be deemed of full age?' Section 29(4)(b) of the Constitution is against all reason and practical wisdom. Are we saying any child that is married has suddenly become an adult based solely on the fact that she is married? [caption id="attachment_405254" align="alignright" width="288"] Barrister Itoro Eze-Anaba[/caption] This is wrong because a child is a child. We should ask why old men like taking young girls as wives. Children of the rich are given the opportunity to develop, go to school up to university level and at times postgraduate level before getting married. In many instances, it is only children of the poor who suffer from early marriage, are withdrawn from school and given out in marriage to men old enough to be their fathers and g...

By SOLA OGUNDIPE AT 13, Hafsat Auwalu was married. At 14, she became pregnant. When it was time for her to be delivered of her baby, Hafsat was taken to the nearby primary healthcare facility where she laboured for hours, but the baby would not come out. There was a problem. Hafsat is frail in stature with a small pelvis. Her pelvis was too narrow for the head of the baby to pass through.  She pushed and pushed, but the baby’s head was lodged in the narrow birth canal. The pain was excruciating. [caption id="attachment_405891" align="alignnone" width="412"] Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zainab Maina, Executive Secretary of Women Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative, Mrs. Saudatu Mahdi and Mrs. Felicia Onibon from Change Managers International Network, addressing newsmen on constitutional amendment by the Senate [/caption] There was nothing the birth attendants could do. There was no doctor on call and no one in attendan...