The Leader of House of Representatives’, Honourable Mulikat Akande Adeola on Thursday in Abuja assured women that their concern about Child-Marriage would be given the necessary attention now that the issue had been brought to the fore by its adoption by the Senate during the Constitution Review Exercise.
Addressing a group of women under the aegis of ‘Concerned Women in Nigeria’ on a courtesy call on her to express their feelings and condemnation of the development, Honourable Adeola noted that as a woman, mother and a Nigerian, she shared their concern and would support actions that will reverse the development which she said was an exception to the norm.
She told the women not to blame the present crop of women Senators for allowing the clause to pass through, adding that as mothers themselves they must be aware of the dire consequences on the girls given out in marriage at tender ages.
The House leader concurred with members of the group that child -marriage was not only morally and ethically wrong, it goes against the dictates of religious tenets in the country and wondered the level of victims’ ability to cope and take decisions about their conditions and Motherhood in general.
She then advised the women to, as a group submit a formal petition to the House of Representatives for the legislature to have basis for addressing the issue.
Earlier, the spokesperson of the group and former chairperson Abuja chapter of the Federation of International Women Lawyers Barrister Iyabode Ogunseye charged the House Leader to use her good offices as the highest placed woman political office holder in the country to see that the child-marriage clause does not find its way into the constitution.
She added that the norm world-wide as encapsulated by the United Nations Convention is that girls should be allowed to outgrow puberty level to at least eighteen years of age before they are given out in marriage and that Nigeria cannot afford to be an exception.
She listed VVF and other associated diseases, trauma as well as truncation of education as top of the problems facing victims of child-marriages and called on women to stand-up against the development.
