The Child's Rights Act defines a child as a human being who is less than eighteen years of age. This is line with the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (African Children's Charter) which Nigeria has ratified and domesticated. 18 years is the age of majority in Nigeria agreed, albeit implicitly, by some constitutional provisions. These include Section 29 (4) (a) which provides that 'full age" means the age of eighteen years and above, though dealing with citizenship; Section 35 (1) (d) permits denial of right to personal liberty to a person less than eighteen years for education or welfare. Section 36 (4) (a) authorizes the exclusion of the public from courts/tribunals hearings for the welfare of persons who have not attained the age of eighteen years; and Section 77 (2)/ 112 (2) provides that to be eligible for registration as a voter for either national or state legislative house, a Nigerian must have attained eighteen years.
Children are generally excluded from activities like voting, driving, entering into a contract, because such activities demand physical, psychological and mental maturity. Children are believed to lack the capacity to enter into contracts. Marriage is a contract requiring the consensus of the parties involved. Marriage is also widely believed to be of adult concern as a child lacks the full understanding to comprehend fully what marriage is about. This is understandable because there is a time for everything, a time to be a child and a time to be an adult.
Experts have noted grave effects of girl-child marriage. These include susceptibility to the health risks associated with early sexual initiation like obstetric fistula. Their partially developed reproductive organs could predispose them to complications during childbirth, Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF), secondary infertility, maternal and infant mortality. Their Inability to negotiate safe sex increases their vulnerability to Sexually Transmitted Diseases and infections, including HIV. They are victims of sexual and other forms of domestic abuse, social isolation and are deprived of the opportunity to maximize their potentials in order to make meaningful contributions to their worlds, perpetuating gender inequality and female poverty.
It is little wonder that besides the Child's Rights Act, a plethora of international and regional conventions have ratified and domesticated treaties like the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Protocol to the African Charter on Rights of women in Africa (Women's Protocol) and the African Children's Charter, specifically prohibit Child marriage.
The Nigerian Constitution, also guarantees fundamental human rights to the citizens.. These rights are divided into Civil /Political and socio-economic, rights with the distinction lying in the justifiability of Civil/Political rights. This articles will not overstress the indivisibility of rights, the pertinence of making socio-economic rights enforceable or even Nigeria's duty of upholding obligations voluntarily imposed on itself by ratification as was held by the African Commission. It focuses on the guaranteed fundamental rights provisions of Constitution and domesticated treaties in relation to child marriage. Section 33(1), in guaranteeing right to life, provides that 'every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court …' When girls are forced into marriages, they begin procreation before the full development of their reproductive organs, predisposing them to complications of
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