In Nigeria, 44% of girls are married before 18 and 18% before 15. Nigeria has the third highest number of child brides in the world at 3.5 million. Child marriage is most common in the North where over half of women married before 18. It is driven by lack of education, poverty, gender norms, and violence, and costs the country $7.6 billion annually. Nigeria has committed to eliminating child marriage by 2030 in line with UN development goals.
In Nigeria, 44% of girls are married before 18 and 18% before 15. Nigeria has the third highest number of child brides in the world at 3.5 million. Child marriage is most common in the North where over half of women married before 18. It is driven by lack of education, poverty, gender norms, and violence, and costs the country $7.6 billion annually. Nigeria has committed to eliminating child marriage by 2030 in line with UN development goals.
In Nigeria, 44% of girls are married before 18 and 18% before 15. Nigeria has the third highest number of child brides in the world at 3.5 million. Child marriage is most common in the North where over half of women married before 18. It is driven by lack of education, poverty, gender norms, and violence, and costs the country $7.6 billion annually. Nigeria has committed to eliminating child marriage by 2030 in line with UN development goals.
In Nigeria, 44% of girls are married before 18 and 18% before 15. Nigeria has the third highest number of child brides in the world at 3.5 million. Child marriage is most common in the North where over half of women married before 18. It is driven by lack of education, poverty, gender norms, and violence, and costs the country $7.6 billion annually. Nigeria has committed to eliminating child marriage by 2030 in line with UN development goals.
their 18th birthday and 18% are married before the age of 15. According to UNICEF, Nigeria has the third highest absolute number of child brides in the world – 3,538,000 – and the 11th highest prevalence rate of child marriage globally.
Child marriage is most common in the North
West and North East of Nigeria, where 68% and 57% of women aged 20-49 were married before their 18th birthday. Child marriage is particularly common among Nigeria’s poorest, rural households and the Hausa ethnic group. A 2017 World Bank study estimates that child marriage costs Nigeria USD7.6 billion in lost earnings and productivity every year.
In Nigeria, child marriage is also driven by:
• Level of education: 73% of Nigerian women with no formal education were married before 18, compared to only 9% who had completed higher education. Further education is almost impossible for some girls, who have little choice but to depend on their husbands for the rest of their lives. • Political and economic ties: Some girls are married off by their parents to enhance political and social alliances with rich families or business partners and to improve their economic status. • Gender norms: Some Nigerian men reportedly prefer to marry children. Girls are not accepted as equal partners within marriages, which contributes to a sense of low self-worth. A 2004 study shows that domestic violence is more common among marriages involving young girls in Nigeria. • Violence against girls: The abduction of 276 Chibok girls in 2014 was just one instance of a disturbing tactic used by Boko Haram – child marriage as a weapon of war. Christian and Muslim girls have been kidnapped and married off by Boko Haram in an attempt to dismantle communities and attract male recruits who are awarded “wives” if they fight. Some parents have been killed for refusing to marry off their daughters. • Poverty: The humanitarian crisis in North Eastern Nigeria left more than two million people displaced since 2016. Families facing extreme famine and living in refugee camps sometimes marry off their daughters because they lack alternative survival options.
Nigeria has committed to eliminate child,
early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
the government noted that most states in the
North of the country manage a cash transfer programme aimed at reducing girls’ school dropout rates due to early marriage. Nigeria signed a joint statement at the 2014 Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.
Nigeria ratified the Convention on the Rights
of the Child in 1991, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage. In 2016, Nigeria launched the African Union Campaign to End Child Marriage in Africa. In 2001 Nigeria ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, including Article 21 regarding the prohibition of child marriage. In 2004 Nigeria ratified the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, including Article 6 which sets the minimum age for marriage as 18.
In 2016 the Ministry of Women Affairs and
Social Development launched a National Strategy to End Child Marriage. The strategy’s vision is to reduce child marriage by 40% by 2020 and end the practice entirely by 2030. A Technical Working Group on Ending Child Marriage was formed at the end of 2015. The Group is composed of over 30 members, including UN agencies and Girls Not Brides members, and aims to raise awareness, encourage behaviour change and monitor and evaluate laws and policies.
Worldwide, as many as 650 million women
alive today married before they turned 18. Child marriage sets them up for a life of hardship — they are less likely than their peers to stay in school and more likely to become victims of domestic violence.
Only 23 states of the 36 Nigeria states have
begin to taken steps to implement the minimum age of marriage.