African Area Studies : Child Marriage in Africa

Child Brides in Africa

Child brides are very common in Africa. Many young girls marry at the age of nine years old, which is horrible. Aside from young girls, boys also marry young, under the age of 18. Child marriage is common primarily in rural areas and it's also mainly the poor who marry young. Within Africa, 42% of girls were married by the age of 18.

Health Problems:

Child brides are more likely to die young due from health problems. They experience premature pregnancy, which is when child brides usually bear children before they are physically or emotionally ready to do so. Also they can experience maternal mortality because they are younger than 15, and are five times more likely to die during child birth or pregnancy than older women. They are also prone to inherit HIV/AIDS from their husbands.

Physical, Verbal Abuse and Mental Health:

Child Brides can also experience physical abuse from their spouse, and experience torture from them. Also verbal abuse is common as well. Mental health wise, child brides can experience post-traumatic stress and depression from the violence and abuse that they face from their marriages.

Isolation&Abandonment:

They are often isolated from their peers and they can be easily abandoned id they develop health problems. One in particular is Fistula.

Education:

Child brides are all illiterate due to being pulled out of school at a young age and because they live in poverty.

Niger:

Niger has highest rate of child brides within Africa. The lowest rate is Zambia. They are struggling to stop the practice of child marriages. According to BBC News.com they stated how within Niger, "About 24% of girls will be married by the time they are 15. That rises to nearly 80% by the age of 18. It is a social phenomenon that affects all significant ethnic groups in Niger, including the majority Hausa community"(http://www.bbc.com). Also the main reason as to why Niger has the highest rate of child marriages is because they suffer from economic issues.

If a family is living in poverty and a wealthy Nigerian man approaches them and wants to marry their daughter, they will immediately give their daughter away because it is one less person to feed, and they also need the money to survive. Many wealthy Nigerian man pay up to thousands of dollars for a wife, and it all depends on her beauty.

Also child marriage is often protected by religious leaders, because child marriage is something normal within Niger and Africa itself. Their has been cases where the Nigerian government tried to introduce laws that would give more protection to girls, but it faced strong opposition from prominent clerics in it's Muslim country.

UNICEF:

The United Nations Children's Fund has been campaigning for change. They want child marriage and child brides to decrease and eventually have nothing of it left. They carry out awareness programs in tows and villages within Africa.

Unfortunately the world's poorest countries have the highest rates of child marriage and Africa is one of them. It's so tragic how families give away their daughters or in some cases their sons, to older partners for marriage, due to living in poverty and they are in need of money. The position that these families have to face everyday in their lives is depressing. I would never give away my children for money, but it's the only choice these families who live in poverty have within Africa, and primarily in Niger, if they want to continue living.

Their should be more awareness of child marriage and it should be put to an end. Education should become more important within Africa, and many religious leaders, should change their way of thinking when it comes down to child marriage. Poverty should be reduced as well. I hope that child marriage decreases over the next several years.

1st article link: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/341/facts.html

2nd article link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27619295

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