Resource Persons

Child Marriage

Domestic Violence

Women Speak:

Rashida's Life Story

Gender Equality

Political & Legal System

The Nigeria Life Stories Project was undertaken by a coalition called Musawah Nigeria, with particular contributions by two nongovernmental organizations: the Center for Women and Adolescent Empowerment (CWAE) and Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative (IWEI). Founded in 1996, the CWAE promotes women’s human rights and women’s socioeconomic and political participation, advocates against child marriage, provides support to people who have been displaced by the recent insurgency in the northeastern states and raises awareness about reproductive and sexual rights.

Founded in 2009, the IWEI focuses on the most vulnerable groups, most of whom are women and children, aiming to enhance their capacity building and economic self-reliance through the provision of access to justice, healthcare, education and economic empowerment programmes.

The Nigerian life stories research team consisted of four activists: Asma’u Joda, Amina Hanga, Maryam Tauhida Ibrahim, and Mariam Marwa-Abdu. The team chose to focus on child marriage as part of their advocacy work on eliminating child marriage in Nigeria, and therefore documented life stories of six women who had been child brides.
 

Resource Persons*

 
Salamatu (16 years old)
is a divorced young woman. At the age of 14, she was forced to marry a man 40 years older than her. Facing his abuse and marital rape, she fled to the city to work as a nanny. Her employer encouraged her to pursue her education but after her mother tracked her down once, she disappeared. Later, her mother found her again and took her back to the village, but all contact with her has since been lost.

Hauwa Balarabe(50 years old)
is a married woman. Raised by her aunt, she faced many hardships, was deprived of education and forced to work, and was married off at the age of 14. While escaping her first abusive marriage, she fell into prostitution and went to work in Saudi Arabia. She remarried twice, first for 18 years as a second wife to an elderly Saudi man, and then to a former Nigerian suitor. She is unhappy in her current marriage, feels constrained and would like to go back to her work in Saudi Arabia.

Rashida (35 years old)
is a divorcee and a mother of six children. At the age of 16, she was forced to quit school and was married off. She faced abusive treatment from her husband and in-laws and had little support from her family. The court advised her to ask for a khul‘ divorce even while her family pressured her to return to her husband. She was resolute and finally won her case and got a judicial divorce.

Murja (35 years old)
is a married mother of three children. At the age of 14, she was forced to quit school and marry her cousin. After she suffered domestic abuse and polygamy, her maternal aunt helped her get a divorce. She is now happily married to her second husband and is pursuing her dream of furthering her education.

Safiya (41 years old)
is a married mother of nine children. Raised by her aunt, she was prevented from going to school or even studying the Qur’an in the class her uncle taught in front of their house, and was instead forced to work selling goods on the streets. At the age of 15, she was forced to marry a man who was 65. She ran away several times before he finally granted her a divorce a year later. She eventually married the man of her choice but is facing polygamy and economic hardship while struggling to support her children with little assistance from her husband.

Zainab (40 years old)
is a married mother of seven daughters. She was raised by relatives, deprived of education, forced to work as a child and forced to marry at the age of 14. Marginalized by her in-laws because she ‘only’ gave birth to girls, her husband married a second wife. She suffered from her co-wife’s mistreatment and her husband’s neglect.
 
*Note that all of the resource persons’ names have been changed to protect their identities and that most of the quotations and stories have been translated, edited and condensed for clarity.
 

Child Marriage

 
The Nigerian research team documented life stories of women who experienced child marriage, a major problem encountered by many Nigerian women, particularly in Muslim-majority areas in the north. In 2003, the Nigerian National Assembly passed the Child’s Rights Act to consolidate and unify all laws relating to rights and responsibilities of children. The Act defines a child as one who is below the age of 18 years and prohibits betrothal and marriage of children. However, federal laws must be adapted by state assemblies, and none of the states in the North have adapted the Child’s Rights Act. Therefore, residents of those states can use customary laws that allow child marriage.

All the traditional Muslim schools of law consider that a girl has reached sexual maturity (bulugh) and can be married once she menstruates. At the same time, to acquire legal capacity and be able to enter contracts, a person must attain a separate condition called rushd, or the intellectual maturity to handle one’s own property and affairs. In other words, puberty without intellectual maturity does not create the legal capacity to contract marriage. Thus, child marriage is a violation of not just human rights principles but also of Muslim juristic principles.

However, most Muslim marriages in Nigeria are based on Maliki interpretations that allow a guardian (wali) to conclude marriages for and on behalf of an infant boy and virgin girl. For many of the life stories documented, the power of wilayah was extended beyond legal guardians to other actors within the family, to the detriment of the resource persons. For example, some of the resource persons’ forced marriages were arranged by senior family members who were not their legal guardians, such as stepmothers, aunts, older sisters, uncles, brothers or grandfathers, irrespective of the say or involvement of the existing legal guardian. For instance, Salamatu was forced to marry a man 40 years older than her because her suitor gave money and gifts to her stepmother. The father followed his wife’s decision, assuming that she was close to Salamatu and would take into consideration Salamatu’s desires. Salamatu’s express consent was never required to conclude her marriage.

Child marriage is also entangled with and exacerbated by other forms of vulnerability such as economic and social marginalization. These marriages were motivated to some extent by the poverty and meagre economic resources of the families. Child marriage is often perceived as a way to secure a young girl’s financial survival and protection. For instance, before getting married, many of the Nigerian resource persons had already left school and engaged in informal work to earn incomes for their families. As such, when Hauwa Balarabe was living with her aunt, she had to do all the house chores while selling food items to provide for her schooling expenses. Hauwa’s aunt still considered her to be an economic burden and married Hauwa off against her will at the age of 14.

These marriages have many harmful consequences for child brides who are subjected to psychological and emotional trauma, domestic violence and health problems such as premature pregnancy, maternal mortality and sexually transmitted infections. Because of extreme economic vulnerability, the resource persons often married much older men who were already in polygamous marriages, resulting in highly abusive and hierarchical marital relations. In addition, resource persons’ lack of access to education put the women in further marginalized positions that greatly reduced their options to resist or exit unwanted marriages.
 

Domestic Violence

 
Regardless of age, economic background, education or ethnicity, domestic violence was a common thread for the Nigerian resource persons. As in many other parts in the world, domestic violence is rooted in community practices and rarely reported because communities view what occurs in the home as a private matter. The resource persons faced abuses from both their husbands and other family members, such as beating, punching, kicking and having objects thrown at them. For instance, Murja’s first husband beat her with electric cables while her co-wife enjoyed the scene; Hauwa Balarabe’s husband frequently beat her with a uniform belt and flung plates and dishes at her.

Husbands used violence as a tool to demonstrate power, authority and control over their wives. The fact that the marriages were based on extremely hierarchical gender relations, coupled with husbands who were older and had more resources (whether money or social networks and leverage), further cemented the men’s unchecked authority.

For most of the resource persons, domestic violence was accompanied by sexual abuse. The negative workings of qiwamah were manifested in the resource persons’ husbands’ unchecked and abusive claims to marital sex. For instance, Salamatu, who married a man 40 years older than herself, was severely beaten by her husband over six months because she refused to have sexual relations with him. He eventually violently raped her and she escaped. Although Salamatu’s young body and genitals were severely wounded, her father sent her back to her husband and threatened to kill her if she came back to him again.

Spousal violence—both physical and sexual—was also justified by both men and women on religious grounds. Rashida believed that it was a wifely duty to obey and sexually satisfy her husband. She felt that if she failed in her duty, he had the right to punish her. Dominant interpretations of verse 4:34 posit that physical disciplining (daraba) of a wife in a state of ‘disobedience’ (nushuz) is permitted as long as it does not cause ‘great harm’. However, there is a range of opinions as to the meanings of the terms daraba and nushuz which could lead to many other interpretations. Domestic violence and all other kinds of violence are violations of human rights and Islamic ethics.

While experiencing severe domestic violence and sexual abuse, many resource persons did not get support from their families. On the contrary, they were very often advised to go back to their husbands and to be obedient and submissive wives. For instance, as shared in her story, Rashida was subjected to systematic domestic violence and sexual abuse but her family pressured her to go back to her husband for the sake of their children and respect in the eyes of community. Despite this lack of support, Rashida managed to get a judicial divorce from her husband.
 
 

Gender Equality

 
Although the Constitution prohibits gender-based discrimination, inequality between men and women exists in education, employment and economic resources. While 55% of Nigerians can read and write, gender-based differences remain. Seventy per cent of males aged six and above have attended school but only 58% of females have entered a classroom (NDHS, 2013). Moreover, 54% of women in rural areas (compared to 22% in urban areas) have not been educated. Because of limited education and skills, some women and girls are confined to care and housework at home or producing small items for petty trading. Women’s unemployment and underemployment rates are higher than men’s (8.9% vs 6.3% unemployment; 19.6% and 13.9% underemployment (NDHS, 2013)).
 
For many years, Nigeria has been facing terrorist threats and attacks posed by militant groups. The most worrisome group, which is nicknamed ‘Boko Haram’ (a Hausa term that means ‘Western education is a sin’), focuses on opposing the education of girls and women by attacking schools. The threats and attacks have caused serious security problems throughout the country, particularly the Northern states, and a grave humanitarian situation in the North East of the country.