Ending Child Marriage: Addressing the Cynics
Strong Role Models
It is also important to engage strong female role models of Muslim and Northern Nigerian descent to push this advocacy forward. I direct this call to the global charity organisations who have in the past used glossy celebrities to advocate for African issues. For example, Angelina Jolie, who is in-fact one of my favorite actresses, is not going to end child marriage in Nigeria. The current campaign to end child marriage in Africa is currently being driven by the liberal and the predominately Christian south; and the Western world.
We need strong, powerful educated Muslim Nigerian women who will be the face and the voice of a global campaign to end child marriage in Nigeria and in Africa; and I ask organisations like Plan, Save The Children, Mercy Corps and UNICEF to look into this. The Nigerian Muslim girl needs role models and I am sure that we already have many, but we must give them the media attention necessary to make this advocacy productive.
I end with this beautiful and touching story of a young girl who grew up to be a child rights activist and lawyer defending the rights of child brides on death row for killing their husbands.
She told me that her mother was so inspired by Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, (the mother of the celebrated musician Fela Kuti and Nigeria’s first female activist who started campaigning for women’s rights in the late 40s) and wanted her to grow up and be like her - a strong independent woman who had her own car. It is for this reason that her mother sent her to boarding school at the age of 9 to escape child marriage. The interview is now available on Podcast and Sound cloud. Could boarding schools be the answer? Financed and operated in a joint venture between government and the private sector using non-governmental organisations as a bridge? One cannot be too sure and one should be cautious in weighing this option especially after Chibok and the attack on a boarding school which led to the abduction of over 230 girls by terrorists.
–– Olakanpo, the CEO of the not-for profit organisation CSR Children; an educationist, lawyer, and global advocate for corporate social responsibility and children’s rights, writes from London, UK