THE room was somewhat stuffy; the air filled with the smell of baby urine and dirty clothes. Its main occupant 45-year-old local guard, Kabiru Mohammed, pointed at a corner of the small and grimy space. “Mariama, are you awake,” he said, addressing his wife.
Mariama, apparently taken aback by the visitor’s intrusion, struggled to get up from the multi-cultured mat on the floor where she laid with their newborn.
“Good morning, sir,” she greeted and quickly returned to her corner while her husband hurdled into a squatting position by their baby who was still enjoying his sleep.
The visitor-this reporter- had called under the guise of gifting the baby money.
Soon, Mohammed calmly launched into the story of how he and Mariama, young enough to be his daughter, became husband and wife, adding gusto into the tail like a warrior boasting about his conquest.
“I am from Katsina and I have been living in this place (Mowe Ogun State), for more than 10 years,” he said.
“Mariama’s father is a friend to my brother.”
As he adjusted his position where he sat beside me, I glimpsed a smirk on his face ,the kind reserved for tasty meal.
Mariama was barely 12 when her parents accepted Mohammed’s proposal.
Two years later she parked in to become a full housewife.
He continued: “I used to send money to her parents to pay for her school fees, because I wanted her to understand and speak English.
“ I also attended secondary school before coming to Lagos. Her parents asked me last year to come for my wife because they could not afford to send her to school any longer.”
Religion, custom and tradition
Mohammed does not see Mariama as a child.
“My mother had me at the age of 13,” he announced .
“In my tradition and religion, as soon as a girl starts menstruating she is ready for marriage.”
It is such written and unwritten religious laws, diffusing into age-long custom and traditions, that the Nigerian Child Rights Act (2008) has to contend with.
The Act considers such relationship between Mohammed and Mariama illegal.
Legality is conferred only on marriage or betrothal for those from 18 years and above.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) also frowns on the practice of giving out under aged girls out in marriage.
Modern-day slavery, that is how the ILO defines it.
In some parts of the country, however, the Nigerian Child Rights Act and the ILO definition of child marriage amount to nothing more than exercises in futility.
Mariama, who turned 15 this January, recalled the joy and pain of having a baby at 14.
Joy: for delivering without any health complication, and pain: because she feels lonely.
Nothing prepared her for this new life as wife and mother.
“My mother is not here to help with the baby,” she said
“ My husband is out most of the time. I fend for the baby all alone and have to go to market too to cater for the home.”
That Mariama did not suffer a rupture or vestico vagina fistula (VVF) at delivery was a miracle to Dr Demola Adewusi, the lead doctor at Broadland Hospital Ogun state, who took delivery of her baby.
She also got help from their landlord and the private hospital.
Interjecting,Muhammed said: “My Oga (master) tried for us. When my wife got pregnant, he took us to the hospital his family uses and handed her to the doctor. He used to give us money too so that she could go for antenatal all the time and so, when she was due, the baby came and her delivery was not complicated.”
Dr Adewusi called Mariama’s case a special one from the day she was brought in by their landlord.
“He told me that his security man travelled home, up North, and came back with a 14-year-old girl as his wife.
“The man was scared and told me to do whatever we needed to do to deliver her safely and put the bill on him.
“ He said the girl must not die. Therefore, all through pregnancy, we monitored her. Even on the day of delivery, we had assumed surgery and we were ready. Interestingly, she delivered by herself and the baby was a bit short of 3KG.”
Mariama was lucky to go through without a scratch, Silifatu wasn’t so lucky.
She also dropped out of school at 15 to wed the man her father choose for her as husband: a twice married , 52 year old man.
Silifatu ended up at the reserved wing of University Teaching Hospital Ibadan (UCH), joining a long list of those suffering from fistula, a common disease among child mothers.
It occurs when the womb ruptures caused by prolonged childbirth ,leading to leakage of urine.
Growing up in Damaturu, Yobe State, under the care of peasant parents, she is accustomed to hard work and life.
The family owns three farms and all year round, there is a farm to be cultivated, harvested or prepared for the rainy season.
“I was always with my mother,” she recalled, “and if we were not preparing food for the family of nine, we would be on the farm harvesting.”
Thin and disheveled , she looks older than her official 16 year-old.
Determined to learn how to write and read, she often walked over five kilometeres to attend the community school at Damaturu, from Monday to Thursday. Friday was set aside to join her brothers in the Quranic school, until she was married off at 15.
Condemned to Obey
In a resigned tune, she lamented that kicking against early marriage is like going against an entrenched custom and tradition.
“My mother used to tell me that I would be going off to my husband once I was old enough,” she said with a tone of regret in her voice.
“I was not part of the arrangement. The traditional is that my father would make the arrangement and my mother would convey the message to me and my own part was to go along with whatever decision they took.”
Education is not an option for Silifatu. Marriage is her primary assignment, and school is secondary.
Like Mariama, her marriage was quickened by the flood and subsequent poor harvest that affected her family two farming seasons ago.
Financial distress soon crept in.
Short of funds and food to cater for his large family, her father simply asked her husband to come for her hand in marriage.
For her parents, the bottom line was one less mouth to feed.
And she was not alone in her cycle of friends.
“Four of my friends also left school to get married at the same time I did,” she mourned.
What mother told me!
Silifatu got pregnant the second month she joined her husband’s harem and her health challenge began almost immediately.
“My mother did not tell me that sex or child bearing would be difficult. I observe basic hygiene but I did not know much about delivery,” she said.
“ She told me it could be painful, but it would go away quickly. That I must be brave and I can cry if I want to.”
Silifatu suffered multiple tears leading to fistula after prolonged labour and her husband sent her to the health center when the traditional birth attendant methods did not mitigate her suffering.
“The midwives in my village took care of my delivery. It was painful and thereafter my husband noticed that I was suffering and took me to the local clinic, but they did not have the basic equipment to treat my case. Therefore, I was referred to Kebbi VVF center. From there I was sent to the University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan where free surgery is available,” explained Silifatu, who has undergone two surgeries and now in rehabilitation.
Teen pregnancy upsurge
While Mariama and Silifatu have been hounded out of school by a combination of tradition and hard time, the latter appears to be the root cause of teen pregnancy in urban cities and towns.
Mrs. Florence Sunday , an administrator in a private school, said more parents are withdrawing female children from schools since the country officially went into recession.
Girl child discrimination
Her words:”In my school, we have lost three girls from JJS 1 and JJS 2. They did not return for the second term in January. Their parents said they could not cope with the high fees because they lost their jobs and business was bad.
“ I see those children going wayward and getting pregnant in sooner than later. Girls are delicate and when they don’t find comfort at home, they turn elsewhere for it.
“ Yet, they may not be able to handle what is to come their way,” said the mother of three with tears swelling in her eyes.
Stella falls into this group mentioned by Mrs. Sunday.
Her father took to okada (motorcyclist) riding after losing his white-collar job last year. Her mother – a petty trader- also closed down her shop due to low funding.
“I had to stop schooling because my parents said I should allow them concentrate on my two brothers, who are also in school,” Stella complained in a vacant tone.
It is not uncommon in many parts of the country for poor and often uneducated parents to withdraw their female children from school during lean periods, while male children continue.
The decision, though unpopular with Stella, became her undoing as she sought compassion outside her home and today, at 16, is in the family way.
A 25-year- old artisan is responsible for her pregnancy. “I don’t know if I would be able to go back to school,” she said followed with a heavy sigh.
Biola, 17, is five months pregnant. She attends antenatal on Thursdays at Oke Afa Health Center Ogun State. She was a student of a private secondary school at Oke Afa until she dropped out a year ago to join her mother at her restaurant at Magboro market.
“My father said he had lost many customers in his welding business. He said he was not getting new jobs and so we hadto manage,” she recalled.
Biola was managing the food joint whenever her mum was away.
“That is how I met my husband. He owns a danfo (commercial bus), and promised to take care of me. I’m pregnant for him and we are making plans for marriage, but he wants me to have the baby first.”
Biola may never head back to school, she may never see the four walls of classroom again, her future mortgaged and truncated.
Fatal statistics
According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 2.6 million Nigerians became unemployed within the first and second quarters of 2016, bringing the figure to a scary 22.45 million, higher than the 20.7 recorded in 2015.
Expectedly, this is having an effect on the education index. The United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says no fewer than 10.5 million Nigerian children are out of school and more will join the growing list of school leavers, mostly girls, due to the current hard times.
The Nigeria Population Commission (NPC) recons that , Biola, like many pregnant teenagers, stands a risk of not only losing her future, but her life and that of her unborn baby.
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