LEGALIZING CHILD ABUSE IN NIGERIA

My heart was heavy and bitter as I gazed through various social media reading reports of the proposed bill to legalize child marriage. I cannot help but wonder what exactly is wrong with our nation. In  a country where everything is going wrong; from political instability to unemployment to poor education etc. we can still find time to worsen the situation of things. We claim to be fighting child labour/ above yet we want to promote child marriage. Haba! This actions are contradictory. Whether child marriage or child abuse/labour, they are all thesame.

Being young is hard enough but trying to leave through pain for the rest of one’s life is really something else. According to Wikipedia, ”a child is a human between the stages of birth and puberty”. Now from my understanding of birth and puberty we are should be talking of the ages between 0yr and 12yrs. This is someone that can barely tell his or her right from left. This is someone that is solely dependent on his/her parents or an adult. Someone that cannot edit situations by his/her own self but takes any explanation of circumstances by an adult as it is.  Is this the kind of person we expect to be given out in marriage? In this African society where women are less valued than men (though this is fast changing) how does one expect these child girl to communicate with her husband? Is it that ladies of marriageable age are fast declining in our country that we need young girls to make up for the deficit?

As far as I am concerned this is the craziest thing the house of assembly can ever thing talk about. It is not just worth wasting the country’s precious time with as it is a “no go” area. Children are meant to be taking care of by their parents or guardians and not made to  become mothers and wives even at their naïve state. They should learn to think for themselves first before going into marriage else they will be used as maids in their own home. Women these days have been found to contribute significant opinions to the wellbeing of the family and the society but a girl married off at that age might not get to ever air her view or opinion in anything as she most likely will remain naive for the rest of her live.

We know the course of this argument in the first place; Poverty. Poverty has so much eaten into us that we are willing to give out our child at this tender age. Poverty has changed our sense of reason to make us even want to tak about issues like this. Instead of the senators to device ways of eliminating poverty, some are capitalizing on it as the expense of the majority poor masses.

Our verdict! Eliminate poverty and all these senseless issues will go away with the wind.