Forced marriage in Niger

Forced marriage in Niger

Extended essay

Sheyna Reyes

Outline

1. Introduction
2. Causes

   A. Economical status

       a. Economical stability

   B. Cultural Norms

        a. socially accepted

b.  Methods of asking for the girl (Traditions)

                   a. Kidnapping

                        a. Chibook´s girls

                   b. Family persuasion

c. Family

                     a. Honor violence and  unexpected pregnancy

III. Consequences

  A. Interruption of education

  B. Young pregnancy

  C. Violence

           a. Attacked with acid

           b. Rape

IV. Prevention

    A. Programs to help them

        a. Empower girls

        b. Education

a. sex education

        d. Economical help      

    a. Help families to avoid marrying their daughters in exchange of money

V. Cases

1. Maimuna

VI. Conclusion

R.Q. How to decrease forced marriage in Nigeria

Theory of knowledge: why is it socially acceptable? The way they think

Geography: why they need to do that? And why in that area

Introduction

        Forced marriage and arranged marriage are two different things that people often misunderstand; forced marriage is when someone is threaten, fooled, forced to marry someone without his or her consent. Arranged marriage is practiced by many cultures all around the world, this implies that the families of the bride and groom come to an arrangement and in most of the cases the ones with the final word of accepting the marriage are the groom and the bride (AHA foundation, 2016). In developing countries one third of the girls have been married before the age of 18 and 1 out of 9 girls are married before the age of 15 (International Women’s health Coalition ). Child marriage trespasses the limits between countries and cultures. It’s estimated that if the situation keeps going like this, 142 millions of girls of all around the world, will get married before adulthood in this decade (Council on foreign relations, n.d).

        Niger is on the top 20 of the countries with the highest rates of child marriage, with 76 %, and in the top 10 countries with the highest absolute numbers of child marriage, Niger is in the 10th place. (Vogelstein 2013).At least 77% of women between 20 and 49 years have been married before they turned 18 and only 10% of the girls attend to secondary school (UNICEF, 2013). So the big question is, how to decrease forced marriage in Nigeria?

Causes

Child marriage often occurs in patriarchal societies, where parents and elders have the role of choosing the spouses of their children. Girls are often married when they reach puberty to maximize the opportunity of childbearing. (Nnadi I. 2014)

Cultural norms

Honor violence and unexpected pregnancies: In many cultures they make a big emphasis on the girl’s virginity because it’s linked to family honor. Many parents marry their daughters to protect and prevent them from unexpected pregnancies. In Middle East and in Africa in some places they practice the female genital cutting to preserve their virginity and after a short period, they get married (Council in foreign relations, 2013).

Honor violence happens when the family and other members of the community see the victim of honor violence as shameful because of several acts or situations that he or she was involved. The perpetrator or perpetrators controls the victim during a time and it can begin since a very young age. It can be done by members of the community, entire families, or by an individual. Honor violence can be sexual harassment, homicide, physical harassment, verbal abuse, threats, and imprisonment. The victim tend to change their allegations because they fear their family and the repercussions of being against their family. Usually the repercussions are the religious pressure from the religious leaders of their community (AHA foundation, n.d).

Economic status

In some communities, women are often seen as useless for bringing money to the family, so they use their daughters for trade. Also another reason why some parents see their daughters as potential candidate for early marriage is because they want to avoid the cost of their education. Being out of school makes it easier to marry them sooner. Some families marry of their children to be free of any debts they have. (Council on foreign relations, 2013)

Nigeria is struggling with economic and political stability and the age to get married legally has risen a little and at the north part of the country the average age has decreased since 1990. The recent study that UNICEF made in West Africa demonstrates that the economic crisis causes the early marriages to rise, even in some groups where its practice is not common. Some men are postponing marriage because of the decrease of resources and the parents get worried because their daughters can get pregnant before getting married (UNICEF, 2001).

Traditions

According to the Sharia law the woman cannot marry someone against her will, but under the Maliki school of law, that is practiced on north Nigeria, the one that can choose her husband is her father or guardian. This is called Ijbar, it allows her father or guardian to select her husband based on her interests. However this does not mean that there may not be forced marriage involved. It may involve some monetary interest or other interest of the contemporary Hausa community.  Forced marriage in Hausa is often limited to girls that have not reached yet the puberty or haven’t been in school (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 2006).

The Yoruba that are at the southwest of Nigeria represent between 20 to 25 per cent of the population and most of them are Muslim and Christian. Now at days there are no documented cases of forced marriages. Most of the people stopped the arranged marriages and they select who they want to marry. The Igbo are at the southeast of Nigeria, they represent between 10 and  15 per cent of Nigeria`s population. Most of the Igbo population are christians. There is still cases of early marriage but according to the Executive Director of Women´s  Aid Collective (WACOL), forced marriage in that area has stopped, but he stated that teen pregnancy is one of the main reasons of forced marriage because the families had to force their daughter to get married, in order to avoid shame of having a child out of marriage (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 2006).

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