IMPACT OF EARLY MARRIAGE ON GIRL CHILD EDUCATION IN LAGOS STATE’S SHOMOLU LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of the Research
Education is the process of becoming critically aware of one’s own reality in order to take affective action. An educated person understands his or her surroundings and can deal with them effectively. If there are enough educated men and women, the absurdities of today’s world will not remain unchanged. According to Edukugho (2002), a country’s prosperity is determined not by the abundance of its revenue or the strength of its fortifications, but by the number of its educated citizens.
According to the United Nations Educational Science Organization (UNESCO), education is recognized as the cornerstone for sustainable development in all countries around the world. It is a pivot around which any country’s rapid development of economic, political, sociological, and human resources revolves. According to the Nigeria National Policy on Education (1981), education is the most important investment that the country can make for the rapid development of its economic and political activities.
Having recognized education as a model instrument for effective national development as well as a dynamic agent of change, it is also the foundation for the full promotion and advancement of individuals, including girls and women. Education empowers women by raising their standard of living. It serves as a springboard for women’s advancement in various human endeavors.
It is the fundamental tool that should be provided to girls in order for them to fulfill their roles as full members of society. In fact, the educational empowerment of Nigerian girls serves as a springboard for all other forms of empowerment, including political, social, and economic empowerment. According to James (1998), educating a man educates an individual, but educating a woman educates a nation.
According to Article of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, any marriage of a child under the age of 18 is considered early marriage or child marriage. According to UNICEF (2005), it includes both formal marriage and informal unions in which a girl lives with a partner as if she is married before the age of 18. Child marriage, on the other hand, involves either one or both spouses being children and may take place with or without formal registration, and under civil, religious, or customary laws.
One of the most serious issues affecting female children under the age of 18 is early marriage. These are most common in Northern Nigeria, where they believe a child’s first menstrual period should be at the husband’s house. In some cases, these girls are given to a man old enough to be their father before they are born.
Could this be due to poverty or culture? Some cultural practices have misled us, causing harm to young people who are fed these lies. Making a child see herself as a baby factory, but they are still born into abject poverty.
Child marriage is a fundamental violation of human rights that can have a wide range of negative consequences for girls’ social, mental, physical, and health and well-being. It is also not a one-time occurrence. The right to marry freely and fully is linked to the right to life, the right to health, and the right to an education.
The right to be safe and secure. In addition to denying girls the right to make their own decisions about their lives, it puts them at a higher risk of early pregnancy, domestic violence, and sexually transmitted infections, while also limiting their educational and employment opportunities.
It is also a time when the girl-personality child’s and character are formed and developed. From birth to the age of 18, a girl-child is a biological female offspring. During this time, the young girl is completely dependent on an adult, who could be her parents, guardians, or older siblings.
She is extremely reliant on others and models their behaviors through observation, repetition, and imitation. Her physical, mental, social, spiritual, and emotional development begins and continues until she reaches the young adult stage. Sutherland (2001) Any society’s development would be grossly lopsided if the girl child did not receive a quality education.
In any normal society, education is regarded as a means to power, prestige, survival, greatness, and advancement for both men and women. The United Nations General Assembly (2001) adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to free education in elementary and primary school.
Similarly, the National Policy on Education emphasizes, among other things, that equal opportunities will be provided for all citizens. However, Osinulu (1994) lamented that the girl-child is discriminated against in terms of education and is married off at a young age, denying the girl-child the necessary competencies for community development.
Education, as previously stated, is the movement from darkness to light (Allan Bloom). It provides not only life and technical skills, but also social and connectedness or aptitude, which enables one to access key resources to alleviate poverty.
Individuals develop the social skills and personal capacities required to access resources and opportunities, as well as to form social networks for future support and assistance, by interacting with others. Women with a higher level of education are more likely to have a say in family size and child spacing decisions. They are also more likely to be informed and knowledgeable about contraception and their children’s health care needs.
Adolescent girls who marry outside of their communities often lose close friendships formed in their parental homes and often become quiet and subdued. This means that even if girls have developed social networks, they cannot access them outside of their marital community.
While marriage does not have to mean the end of a girl’s education, the attitudes of parents, schools, and spouses in many societies make it so. Husbands of young wives are often older men who expect their wives to follow tradition and stay at home to take care of the house and children. A girl may be unable to defy her husband’s wishes, and the husband’s family may be unwilling to invest their limited resources in the wife’s continued education.
Early marriage is directly in conflict with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Mathur 2003). It jeopardizes the achievement of the first six goals, which are to eliminate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, and empower women. lowering child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating l-ITV AIDS and other diseases (UN, 2007).
When the relationship between marriage age and development is examined, it is clear that later marriage is precondition for achieving desired development-related goals. These include finishing school, obtaining job training, and acquiring the skills and knowledge required for the roles of citizen, family member, and consumer that are essential for a successful adulthood (Mathur, 2003 and UNICEF, 2003).
Many societies are built around women. Mothers, whether they work or not, have a significant impact on the lives of their children. According to DFID (2005), one of the most important investments a country can make in its own future is to educate girls. Education has a significant impact on girls’ and women’s ability to assert additional rights and achieve social status, such as economic independence and political representation. An education can improve a woman’s chances of finding a good job, raising a healthy family, and preventing the spread of diseases like HIV and AIDS.
According to UNICEF (2004), it is not only the girls who pay for early marriage, but also society. Population pressure, health-care costs, and lost human development opportunities are just a few of the growing burdens that society bears as a result of early marriage.
Girl education is one method of addressing poverty and development issues. With education, girls are given the opportunity to choose their own futures rather than those chosen for them by their parents and guardians. According to Maihotra and Mather (1997), there is a close relationship between delayed marriage and adult earning women’s economic future, and their ability to participate in and contribute to the global economy is primarily dependent on an increase in educational attainment, which is impossible when the girl marries early.
Women who marry at a young age are more likely to make marriage the sole focus of their lives, at the expense of other areas of development such as formal education, training for employment, work experience, and growth.
As a result, early marriage can be a significant barrier for communities seeking to increase educational attainment and break the cycle of poverty.
1.2 Formulation of the Problem
Early marriage can be a violation of a child’s fundamental right to childhood, an education, good health, and the ability to make decisions about their own lives. Early marriage has a variety of physical, emotional, and social consequences, but one of the most common is the withdrawal of girls from formal education. Marriage does not have to mean the end of a girl’s education.
Many societies’ attitudes toward parents, schools, and spouses indicate that it frequently does. Husbands of young wives are often older men who expect their wives to follow tradition and stay at home to take care of the house and children.
The girl may be unable to defy her husband’s wishes, and the husband’s family may be unwilling to invest their limited resources in the wife’s continued education. Many schools have a policy of not allowing married or pregnant girls or girls with babies to return. They believe it will set a bad example for other students or that other parents will be upset that the school is going against traditional beliefs.
Early and forced marriage is most common in areas with high levels of poverty, birth and death rates, conflict and civil strife, and lower levels of overall development, including education, employment, and healthcare. Married young girls are frequently removed from school, and they are at a higher risk of HIV infection, early pregnancy, and health problems such as obstetric fistula. If she survives childbirth, her children are less likely to grow up healthy and educated, perpetuating the cycle of poverty for future generations.
Marriage is frequently the result of leaving school. However, the direction of causation is unclear. Is it true that early marriage causes girls to drop out of school too soon, so that those girls and their families who are predisposed to early marriage are less likely to invest in girls’ education? Demographic and fertility studies have firmly established the interaction between the number of years of a girl’s schooling and the postponement of marriage.
Even if they do allow girls to return, the school environment-rules, timetables, and physical conditions-can make it too difficult for a girl to attend school and perform her duties as a wife and mother at the same time. Bullying and abuse by teachers, students, and other parents can further reduce girls’ self-confidence and sense of security, forcing them to discontinue their education.
Poverty, bride price, dowry, cultural traditions, laws that allow child marriages, religious and social pressures, regional customs, fear of remaining unmarried, illiteracy, and women’s perceived inability to work for money are all factors that contribute to child marriage.
Parents who engage their children in child marriage frequently believe that this marriage protects their daughters from sexual promiscuity and sexually transmitted infections. In reality, young girls tend to marry older men who have a lot of sexual adventures, putting them at a higher risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. Married girls are more likely than unmarried girls to contract diseases such as the Human Immune Virus (HIV) or the Human Papilomavirus (HPV).
Furthermore, there are consequences to child marriage, the majority of which affect girls. Child marriage has long-term effects on girls. Their health, education, domestic violence, and social and economic development are all affected. A large percentage of girls who marry as children are forced to do so by their parents, society, and tradition, and the consequences of child marriage are often suffered by the girls who marry as children. There are numerous consequences to engaging in child marriage, including the following: Health risk-Child marriage endangers the health and life of girls.
To begin with, when a girl is married as a child, she cannot choose when to give birth; society forces her to give birth at such a young age. As a result, complications from pregnancy and childbirth may occur, which are the leading causes of death among adolescent girls under the age of 19 in Nigeria. Pregnant girls aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely as women in their 20s to die during childbirth, and girls under the age of 15 are five to seven times more likely.
These consequences are largely the result of a girl’s physical immaturity, as the pelvis and birth canal are not fully developed. Pregnancy in adolescence, particularly before the age of 15, increases the risk of developing a fistula. Married girls are also more likely than unmarried girls to contract sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer, and malaria.
Child marriage has an impact not only on the mother’s health, but also on the child’s. Mothers under the age of 18 have a 35 to 55 percent greater risk of delivering prematurely or having a baby with a low birth weight than mothers over the age of 18. Furthermore, infant mortality rates are 60 years old. Furthermore, infant mortality rates are 60% higher when the mother is under the age of 18. Children born to single mothers have weakened immune systems and are at a higher risk of malnutrition.
Child marriage is one of the major causes of illiteracy and poverty in most developing countries, including Nigeria. Child marriage frequently ends a girl’s education, particularly in Northern Nigeria. In line with this, uneducated girls are more likely to marry as children.
Early marriage limits a young girl’s ability to continue her education because most drop out of school after marriage to focus on domestic duties and having or raising children. They say education is the foundation of society. Without education, the female child has fewer chances of realizing her dreams, of becoming someone great in the future, of positively contributing to society, making her vulnerable to child or early marriage.
Girls who marry as children are more likely to experience domestic violence. The girl child is more vulnerable to domestic violence and nonconsensual sexual intercourse due to the large age gap between her and her spouse. Girls who marry as children are more likely to experience severe and life-threatening marital violence. The large age difference between the husband and the girl child increases a husband’s power and control over his wife, contributing to an increase in spousal violence.
Child marriage has been declared a violation of human rights by the United Nations through a series of conventions. Child marriage violates a number of interconnected women’s rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of health, freedom from slavery, access to education, freedom of movement, freedom from violence, reproductive rights, and the right to consensual marriage, and the consequences of these violations affect not only the woman, but her children and society as a whole.
Childhood is lost as a result of early or child marriage. Girls are prevented from achieving their life goals and dreams. Their rights are violated, and they lose the ability to direct the course of their lives. Child marriage kills the dream of becoming someone great and influential in life because it prevents them from pursuing their education and earning a degree in school.
1.3 The Study’s Objective
The primary goal of this research is to determine the impact of early marriage on girl child education among school-aged female children in Lagos State’s Shomolu Local Government Area. The research should
Determine the impact of child marriage on the education of girls in the Shomolu Local Government Area.
Investigate the effect of cultural beliefs about early marriage on girls’ education in the Shomolu Local Government Area.
Determine the effect of early marriage on academic performance among girls in the Shomolu Local Government Area.
1.4 Research Suggestions
The study was guided by the following research questions:
What are the consequences of child marriage for girls’ education in Shomolu Local Government Area?
What effects do cultural beliefs about early marriage have on girl-child education in the Shomcu Locai Government Area?
What effects does early marriage have on academic performance in girls’ education in Shorncju Local Government Area?
1.5 Hypotheses for Research
Child marriage has no significant impact on girl-child education.
Cultural beliefs will have no effect on the education of girls.
Early marriage has no significant impact on the academic performance of girl-child education.
1.6 Importance of the Research
Girls would benefit from this study by learning that education is the only way to achieve greater life goals, and this would aid them in correcting the overall imbalance that existed in girls’ education.
Parents would benefit greatly from this study if they learned that educating a woman is never a waste, and that educating a man educates an individual, but educating a woman educates a family (i.e. a nation), and this would help change their attitudes and ignorance toward girls’ education.
This study would greatly benefit government at all levels, federal, state, and local, by recognizing that funds, increased access to education, and poverty alleviation programs should be made available for girls’ education at all levels.
Educators, educational planners, and the general public would benefit greatly from this study by learning that girls are not inferior to men in any way. They would also benefit by learning how to educate, guide, and counsel girls in careers and educational courses.
1.7 Scope of the Research
The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of early marriage on girl child education in the Shomolu Local Government Area.
1.8 Terms with Operational Definitions
Early Marriage: According to Article of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, any marriage of a child under the age of 18 is considered child marriage. While both sexes can be married as children, girls are disproportionately affected.
Girl Child: A girl-child is a biological female offspring who lives from birth to the age of 18. During this time, the young girl is completely dependent on an adult, who could be her parents, guardians, or older siblings.
Poverty is defined as a state of general scarcity, dearth, or a lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. It is a multifaceted concept with social, economic, and political components. Poverty can be classified as absolute or relative.
Education: The process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits, is referred to as education. Storytelling, discussion, teaching, training, and directed research are all examples of educational methods.
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IMPACT OF EARLY MARRIAGE ON GIRL CHILD EDUCATION IN LAGOS STATE’S SHOMOLU LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA