SHE WAS STILL LEARNING TO BE A CHILD AND THEY MADE HER A WIFE- THE ISSUE OF CHILD MARRIAGE.

CHILD MARRIAGE

Somewhere in Nigeria and in some countries around the world right now, a girl is being told to sit properly because she’s a woman now, nobody is asking her if she understands what that means, nobody is checking if she’s done being a child.

One minute she’s worrying about school, friends, and whether her mum will let her go outside and the next minute, she’s being prepared for marriage like it’s a promotion she didn’t apply for and some say it’s normal.

When Tradition Starts Speaking Over Children

Tradition can be beautiful, it can give people identity, belonging, and pride, but sometimes, tradition forgets the people it’s supposed to protect. Child marriage is one of those moments where culture stops listening and starts commanding.

Because how do we explain that a society can watch a child’s life be redesigned by adults and still call it custom? How do we look at a girl who hasn’t even figured out who she is and decide that she’s ready to belong to someone else forever?

From School Runs to Marriage Runs

There’s something particularly painful about seeing a young girl drop her school bag for bridal wrappers, not because marriage is bad, but because the timing matters. Education gives girls options, and options give people freedom and when a girl is married off early, her world shrinks.

Suddenly, her dreams become “later”, then “maybe” and eventually “not necessary”. The girl who could have been anything is now expected to be everything, a wife, a mother and an adult all at once.

Her Body Was Asked to Grow Up Too Fast

Let’s say this gently but clearly; a child’s body is not in a hurry. Pregnancy and childbirth are heavy responsibilities even for grown women, talk less of children whose bodies are still developing. Early marriage often means early pregnancy and early pregnancy comes with risks that nobody puts in the marriage advice sessions.

Some girls survive it, some don’t, while some live on with pain that never really leaves and all of it happens because adults decided that waiting was unnecessary.

Silence Is Not Agreement

Many people assume that if a child doesn’t protest, then she must be okay with it, but children are taught to obey, not to negotiate their futures, so when everyone around you agrees on something, silence becomes the only safe response.

Consent requires understanding and choice and a child has neither. What she has is fear, confusion and the belief that adults always know best.

Poverty Makes Hard Decisions Even Harder

For some families, child marriage feels like survival. When food is scarce and opportunities are few, marrying off a daughter can look like relief, but what feels like a solution today often becomes a problem tomorrow.

A girl, denied education and independence is more likely to remain trapped in the same cycle of poverty, raising children who inherit the same limitations she was forced to accept.

Let Girls Take Their Time

Growing up is not a race, girls deserve time, the time to learn, to fail, to dream loudly, to discover who they are before being asked to become someone’s wife. Protecting their childhood is not rebellion; it’s responsibility.

We don’t need to fight culture, we need to grow it, because before she was a wife, before she was a solution, before she was a sacrifice, she was a child and that should have been enough.