Ibrahim Kanuma winces for his teenage daughter’s hand in marriage as he recalls the moment a 63-year-old man asked him. The proposition had not been uncommon in northwestern Nigeria’s remote, dust-blown state of Zamfara, but he considered the suitor too old for their only child, Zainab (13).
“No matter if he had been aged up to 50 – OK. But that old, he will quickly perish and keep her lonely, ” states the civil servant in his workplace in Gusau, their state money.
To safeguard their school-aged son or daughter through the crushing stigma of widowhood, Kanuma rather offered their blessing to a union having a “reasonably aged” colleague – in their 40s – and even though this kind of betrothal is unlawful. Continue reading “You are told by us about Nigeria’s kid brides in bondage”