THE GIRL- CHILD OF THE INFAMOUS NIGERIAN "CHILD RIGHTS ACT"!

The pro-creation vessel is in danger of extinction! She is in a dire strait; being battered from all angles! The GIRL-CHILD cannot defend herself from the invasion of her privacy; neither can the Nigerian law protect her from human wolves in sheep clothing and adult predators! When it is not a household enemy - like a father, uncle, cousin, male sibling or houseboy that forcibly took away her pride of purity, it was a boy in her school, a male teacher or kidnappers! Though the GIRL-CHILD is the cradle of life expectancy and source of population increase and sustenance, this endangered species was always a vulnerable prey to the warped and unsound mind! The other day, 14-year-old Ese Oruru was dutifully supporting her mother with chores at their local food restaurant when an older male customer brain-washed and took her on a long journey from Bayelsa to Kano State, where she was forcibly initiated into conjugal rites and became a girl-wife and a nursing mother!
The case of another 14-year-old who was also recently abducted to Katsina State and married off to an older man without her parents' consent was still generating a lot of debate on the social media at the time of this publication, yet, the Nigerian 2003 Version of the Child Rights Act, which was incorporated and adopted from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF's) Charter for universal laws on child protection was supposed to be actively in existence! From time immemorial, when civilization was alien to the shores of Nigeria, historians said that child-marriage was a common phenomenon amongst diverse tribes and religious beliefs and cultures, but were always contractual and with the expressed permission and consents of all families involved. During those dark days, it was said that because those girls were minors - between 9 to 13 years when betrothed, - they were usually put into the custody of their spouses' parents to nurture until they were fully matured into womanhood.

But in the 21st Century when there were international laws to protect the girl-child, caution had been thrown to the wind while even a distinguished and educated former Nigerian governor and presently a serving Senator brazenly married and bragged about his "conquest “over a 13-year-old minor whom he took for a "wife" because the said Child Rights Act was an exclusive Federal Legislation which had no binding force of law amongst the States, since only 22 out the 36, had domesticated the statute!
Gone are the days when woman purity was highly esteemed, cherished, protected and defended as a sacred global culture that should be preserved until the first night of married couples! Not long ago in August, 2016, a Ugandan herbalist was arrested for having illicit carnal knowledge with over 100 young girls with the consent of their parents who paid him handsomely for the despicable acts in fulfilment of certain cultural/ritual beliefs of procuring fruitfulness in marriage!
Nigeria on its part had condoned for too long, the proliferation of commercial "girl-child baby factories" in virtually all the six geo-political zones of the nation, which consistently provided safe havens for the endangered species who were either products of broken homes or peer group negative influences/pressures! There is of course the issue of girl-child physical abuse when engaged as house-help or slave and also the trafficking of innocent minor into prostitution at very tender age which had taken phenomenal dimensions mostly in African and Asian countries with the connivance of some parents, guardians or close relatives in view of the inducements of commercial gains.
Recently in Nigeria, 21 out of the 218 Boko Haram-abducted teenage Chibok Secondary School girls of the North East State of Bornu, were released after over two years of incarceration since 14th April, 2014, but it is disheartening that they had been debased, dehumanized, randomly and severally abused, physically, mentally and forcibly initiated into motherhood by their captors! All the same, we give glory to God that they have been reconciled to their loved ones as we look forward to another batch of 83 whose release was still being negotiated by the Federal Government.

By Dr 'Tunde Olufon. 08130669886, 08058436756. dvdolufon @gmail.com.