As this year’s International Day of the Girl calls for an end to child marriage, Nigeria must confront what the practice takes from girls’ health, education, safety and freedom to choose.
A girl should not have to become someone’s wife before she has had the chance to grow up. She should have time to finish school, form friendships, change her mind about her ambitions and learn what she wants from life. None of these should depend on whether an adult considers her ready for marriage.
Yesterday, October 11, marked the International Day of the Girl. The 2026 theme, “End child marriage and invest in girls’ rights”, brings the conversation to a painful question: what does celebrating a girl mean if the people responsible for her safety can still decide that her childhood is over?
For Nigeria, that question belongs in homes, schools, places of worship and government offices. Child marriage is a violation of a child’s rights. Poverty, family pressure and appeals to tradition may explain how it happens. They cannot make it acceptable.
The harm begins with a decision taken out of her hands. Where she will live, whether she will remain in school and what happens to her body may suddenly become matters for others to settle. Calling her a wife does not make her ready for any of it.
A Wedding Does Not Make Her Body Ready
Puberty does not confer adulthood. A girl’s first period is not permission to arrange her marriage, and the ability to become pregnant does not establish physical or emotional readiness for pregnancy. Particularly among younger adolescents, development is still underway while marriage can introduce expectations of sex, pregnancy and childbirth.
The medical risks are substantial. The World Health Organisation reports that mothers aged 10–19 face higher risks of eclampsia and certain serious infections than women aged 20–24. Their babies also face higher risks of premature birth and low birth weight. These are increased risks, not a prediction of what will happen to every girl.
UNFPA identifies pregnancy before the pelvis is fully developed as one factor that can contribute to obstructed labour. Without timely medical treatment, prolonged obstructed labour can cause obstetric fistula, an injury that can leave a girl leaking urine or faeces. Treatment may require surgery, alongside sustained physical and emotional care.
Behind those medical terms is a child who needs adults to protect her health. Access to skilled care matters, but preventing a forced marriage should never depend on whether its consequences can later be treated. Nor should a girl have to suffer a medical emergency before anyone recognises that she has been harmed.
The Emotional Harm Can Outlast the Wedding
Some of the deepest injuries are less visible. Being made to live with a husband she did not choose can mean fear, isolation and the loss of control over ordinary decisions. If the adults she turns to insist that she must endure the arrangement, even asking for help can become frightening.
The United Nations’ material for this year’s observance identifies depression, social isolation and emotional distress among the possible consequences of child marriage. Girls’ experiences differ, but the pressure to manage an adult relationship while still needing care themselves deserves serious attention.
There is also the damage to trust. A child depends on family for safety. When relatives arrange a marriage against her will or return her to a home she has tried to leave, they can undermine that sense of protection. Her resistance should be recognised as a request to be heard and protected.
Research published by Human Rights Watch in 2022 documented harms in both Imo and Kano, including interrupted schooling, violence and restrictions on girls’ decisions. The findings challenge the idea that this concern belongs only to one part of Nigeria. Protecting a child must take precedence wherever the pressure to marry her comes from.
When School and Childhood Give Way to Marriage
Marriage can also reorganise a girl’s entire day. Lessons, homework and friendships may give way to cooking, cleaning, pregnancy and childcare. Responsibilities that adults find exhausting fall on someone who should still have time and support to learn.
Leaving school carries consequences beyond a missed examination. It can narrow access to qualifications, paid work and financial independence. That dependence can make leaving an unsafe marriage harder. A family’s attempt to reduce their immediate expenses may place its daughter in circumstances where she has even fewer choices.
Pregnancy must never be used to justify forcing a girl into marriage. She needs healthcare, protection and a route back to education. Where abuse has occurred, she also needs access to justice. Protecting a family’s reputation cannot take priority over protecting its child.
Protection Must Begin Before a Marriage Is Arranged
Meaningful support after Girl’s Day therefore begins before a marriage is arranged. Keeping girls in school requires attention to fees and other expenses, safe journeys, usable toilets and time to study. Household tasks should be shared fairly so that a girl’s education does not come after everybody else’s needs.
Families facing hardship need practical assistance. In its February 2024 statement on ending child marriage in Nigeria, UNICEF described commitments to strengthen policies and resources at federal, state and community levels. Those commitments should translate into help that families and girls can actually reach: education support, social services and protection when a marriage is threatened.
A girl must also be able to tell a trusted teacher, health worker or protection officer what is happening without having her concerns dismissed. Services need trained staff, safe accommodation where necessary and procedures that do not expose her to further danger. Community and religious leaders have a responsibility to challenge arrangements that put children at risk.
Girls Already Married Still Deserve Choices
Support must reach girls who are already married, too. Condemning the practice must never become a reason to shame those who have experienced it. They deserve respectful healthcare, counselling, safety and opportunities to resume learning. Young mothers need childcare support to make return to school possible.
Their lives must not be treated as finished. With appropriate care and opportunities, girls can rebuild their plans and make decisions previously denied to them. They should be asked what they need and involved in deciding what happens next.
After Girl’s Day, the measure of concern is whether a girl is safer, heard and able to continue growing on her own terms. A childhood should not be the price paid for family approval, financial relief or a custom. When a girl says she does not want to marry, who will stand beside her and make sure her refusal matters?