Extent, Experiences and Perceptions on the Practice of Child Marriage in Northern Nigeria

The thesis is concerned with child marriage in contemporary Nigeria. It examines the primary factors of culture and gender on the one hand, and the secondary factors of religion, education and development on the other hand, and explores how these variables interact in influencing the practice of child marriage. In so doing, it investigates child marriage practices in northern Nigeria, a region where the practice is most prevalent and where customary laws, beliefs and religious values intersect to challenge the Constitution and other legal frameworks impacting on early marriage.

The study adopts a feminist standpoint epistemology which is a unique philosophy of knowledge building that inspires the understanding of the world through the experiences of oppressed women. Using qualitative research methods based on semi-structured and narrative interviews of 40 participants including 15 victims of child marriages to examine young girls’ experience in marriage, and the perceptions of stakeholders on the practice in northern Nigeria, the thesis concludes that child marriage is a manifestation of the dominant cultural order within a society. It is this order that interacts with other societal variables to accept, justify, accentuate and entrench the practice in the form being experienced in northern Nigeria. Against this research outcome, the study posits that much as the nature of the law, the enforcement process, and international instruments are critical in addressing the challenges of child marriage, cultural re-orientation remains a vital new approach to be explored if this practice is to be addressed on a sustainable basis.