The Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi, has advocated a ban on marriage of
women below 18 years, saying most of the women suffering from reproductive
health challenges were products of such marriages.
The emir, who spoke at a workshop organised by the Northern Islamic Forum
in Kano in kano, said time had come when the Muslim community should live
by the reality of economic recession and consequences of early marriage.
He said the era when people gave out their daughters in marriage at early
ages and asked the husbands to wait till they were ripe was nothing but a
deception.
According to Mr. Sanusi, that strategy no longer worked as it had led to
cases of divorce and other ugly situations.
The emir recounted that in the past the rich and the poor married four
wives and bore between 30 and 40 children because the economy was not only
buoyant but also because people were not relying on government for
sustenance.
He said though the harsh economic realities now make it impossible for
people to feed twice a day these days, “unfortunately our people do not
change and somebody with virtually nothing still give birth to 20 or 30
children and this must stop”.
Mr. Sanusi said there was a need to peg the marriage age now because of
the challenges early marriage was posing.
According to him, the marriage age in Egypt at present was 18 while that
of Malaysia and Morocco were 19 and 17 respectively, asking “why not we
here urgently call for pegging of marriage ages within Muslim Umma in
Nigeria?”
He argued that since Nigeria Muslims also practice the MALIKIYYA School of
thought as these countries, “we should follow suit and peg our own
marriage ages for our own good”.
Mr. Sanusi called on the relevant authorities to create a law that would
punish anybody that gave birth to children and allowed them to suffer.
According to him, most of those neglected children not only turned victims
of social vices but also engage in terrorism.