Save the Children International (SCI) report has revealed that budgeting to end child marriage in Nigeria is fragmented and there are no line-item budgets for it.
According to the report, it is difficult to track funding, ensure sufficient allocations and hold governments accountable for driving progress.
The report which was launched on Friday in Abuja by the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, further revealed Northern Nigeria, where rates are highest, 48 percent of women are married before age 15; while 78 percent are married before age 18.
The report pointed out that child marriage was both a cause and a consequence of adolescent pregnancy and also linked to maternal mortality, poor education, ongoing exposure to gender-based violence, illiteracy and intergenerational poverty.
The SCI Interim Country Director, Faton Krasniqi, said budgeting on any child rights agenda was an important step towards delivering on what the government has pledged to do to .
Krasniqi who was represented by the Director of Advocacy, Campaigns, Communication and Media, Amanuel Mamo, lamented that early, child and forced marriage robs the potential of a girl – the potential to be empowered, to have a say, to realise and release their full potentials and become somebody.
He said: “Child marriage erodes and dries the future of the girls, their dreams and hope in life. One of the girls who unfortunately end up in early, child and forced marriage could possibly be someone who invents and have a solution for some of the major challenges that the world is facing today.”
Launching the report, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, said the Nigerian Governors’ Forum has approved a mobile court to address the issues regarding children.
Also, the speaker of the national children’s parliament, Hon. Progress Friday Umoh said the existing national strategy on ending child marriage should be effectively implemented in all states adding that the sensitisation campaigns should be carried out in order to enlighten the general public on the consequences of child marriage.
“I am calling on the government, NGOs,donor agencies and relevant stakeholders to promote the participation of the members of the children parliament,” she said.
