International Nigerian activists condemn mass ‘forced marriages’ of 100 girls and young women

[LeonardoBjj]

Petition launched to halt mass ceremony that organisers say is for 100 orphans whose parents were killed by gangs

Brides on their way to a mass wedding ceremony in Kano state, Nigeria, in October 2023. Photograph: Kola Sulaimon/AFP/Getty Images

Human rights activists in Nigeria have launched a petition to stop a plan to push 100 girls and young women into marriage in a mass ceremony, which has caused outrage in the west African country.

The plan, sponsored by Abdulmalik Sarkindaji, the speaker of the national assembly in the largely Muslim north-western state of Niger, were criticised by Nigeria’s women’s affairs minister, Uju Kennedy Ohanenye. She said she would seek a court injunction to stop the ceremony next week and establish if any of the girls were minors.


Sarkindaji said the girls and young women were orphans whose parents were killed in attacks by kidnapping gangs that roam northern Nigeria. He said he would pay dowries to the grooms.

A petition launched on Wednesday that has more than 8,000 signatures said the Niger state government should prioritise the education of the girls instead of forcing them into marriage.

“We demand immediate action to halt the proposed forced marriages and to instead implement measures that will empower these girls to lead dignified and fulfilling lives,” the activists said.

The women’s affairs minister, Uju Kennedy Ohanenye, said she would seek a court injunction to halt the ceremony. Photograph: X
Critics have expressed concern that some girls may be underage or being forced to comply for financial gain.

Sarkindaji and the Imams Forum of Niger said the marriage ceremony would go ahead on 24 May and insisted the girls were not underage.

Child marriages are common in the mostly Muslim north, where poverty levels are higher than the largely Christian south. Although the legal age of marriage is 18 under federal law, Nigerian states can set their own age.

Niger’s legal marriage age is also 18, but Sarkindaji’s spokesperson said that under sharia law, which is practised in the state, a girl can be married when she reaches puberty.

After meeting on Wednesday, the imams forum said it would take legal action against Kennedy Ohanenye if she did not withdraw her statement suggesting the girls were minors, its secretary, Umar-Faruk Abdullahi, said on local TV.

“We have given the minister seven days to withdraw her statement she used against us, against our speaker, against the Muslim community … that we want to force them into marriage and the children are underage,” said Abdullahi.

Kennedy Ohanenye did not respond to requests for comment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/a...ivists-mass-forced-marriage-girls-young-women

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Forced Marriage: A Form of Modern-day Slavery​

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 40.3 million people are enslaved around the world. Of those, 15.4 million are in situations of forced marriage.

Forced marriage occurs when an individual, regardless of their age, has been forced to marry without consent. While forced marriage impacts both sexes, the ILO reports that 84 percent of the victims are girls and women.

Until recently, forced marriage had not been considered from a slavery perspective, however, there is now increasing acknowledgement – particularly with the official recognition of forced marriage in the 2016 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery report – that the absence of autonomy entering into the union, coupled with the abuse present in many forced marriages and the inability for many to leave, amounts to modern-day slavery.

There are three main types of forced marriage: forced marriage of adults, early or child marriage, and trafficking for marriage. There are numerous reasons why forced marriage occurs, including the payment of a bride price, cancellation of debt, or to settle a dispute, abduction by an armed group – as was the case with many of the girls taken by Boko Haram – deception, to offload financial responsibility – often the case after a natural disaster or during migration – and sometimes to secure another individual’s residency in a country, among others. Regardless of the reason, once the marriage is entered, the risk of additional abuse and exploitation multiplies.

For example, after entering a forced marriage an individual is often subjected to forced labor, sexual exploitation, and/or domestic servitude.

The risk of exploitation and abuse is compounded, and the question of consent complicated, when the victim is a child. Though Girls Not Brides reports that 12 million girls are married each year before the age of 18, not all child marriage amounts to modern-day slavery, particularly if both parties are of similar age, notably 16-18.

The ILO estimates that 37 percent of those living in forced marriage were children at the time of the marriage, and 44 percent of those individuals were under the age of 15. Forced marriage of children has negative education, economic, and health impacts in addition to stripping a child of their childhood and control over their future.

When girls are married off, they often leave school, leading to limited economic opportunities. Further, given the age of many brides and their lack of power in sexual relations, there can be severe health complications stemming from early pregnancies before the body is developed enough to give birth. This is in addition to the grave human rights abuses that many girls and young women endure, including forced labor, rape, domestic servitude, and physical and verbal abuse, with the inability to leave.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that 1.4 percent of the total detected victims of trafficking are trafficked for marriage. As with other forms of human trafficking, trafficking for marriage occurs in a number of forms and many of the victims are left in situations of modern-day slavery. For example, according to the 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report, in China, the sex imbalance – due, in part, to the One Child Policy – has created a large demand for brides, both Chinese and foreign. To keep up with demand, women have been abducted or lured with false promises from countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and North Korea. Poor Chinese men often purchase a foreign bride because the price is much less than the needed dowries and gifts to marry a local. Other examples include a family member selling an individual to a trafficker and/or partner and situations in which the victim is confined, raped, and abused as a means to obtain consent – the UNODC reports that this has been used by criminal networks to acquire residence permits for the European Union.

While the link between forced marriage and modern-day slavery is clear, more data is needed to fully grasp the severity of the problem and identify appropriate solutions.

For instance, the ILO report acknowledges that it is likely that forced marriage is “massively under-detected.” Ending forced marriage would mark a significant impact not only in the fight against modern-day slavery and human trafficking, but also, more broadly speaking, for gender equality. This is reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in which both ending human trafficking and child marriage are included in Goal 5 to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”

https://humantraffickingsearch.org/forced_marriage/