Issues that hurt....... marriage of the underaged

this little girl is being prepared for marriage

I will be talking about issues that bother me, i'm not sure about how other people feel oh but no matter the economic situation you find yourself in, is it so bad that you have to give up your 5 year old girl for marriage to man who is advanced in age?, well over he's forties and fifties. It hurts me so much each time I think about it. There are less privileged families that still struggle and hustle to feed their kids.

I was reading an article about child marriage where girls as young as 9, 10, 11 sometimes even as young as 5 being married off to old men, when i say old i really mean old like Mahatma Ghandi old ( i realize that is an exaggeration but i'm close to the truth). From the beginning of the article to the ending I was just crying as if I was the one they were marrying off to like that.

I'm not married let alone be a parent but if i'm not wrong having kids means your responsible for their well being, so how can you look your child and decide she's ripe for marriage at  the age of 11, these young girls end up being victims of domestic violence, is that the kind of life a mother wants for her child? 

The parents of child brides are often poor and use marriage as a way to provide for their daughter’s future, especially in areas where there are few economic opportunities for women. 

ome families use marriage to build and strengthen alliances, to seal property deals, settle disputes or pay off debts. In some cultures, child marriage is encouraged to increase the number of pregnancies and ensure enough children survive into adulthood to work on family land and support elderly relatives. 

In South Asia, some families marry off all their daughters at the same time to reduce the cost of the wedding ceremony. Chastity is another major reason, and many parents want to make sure their daughters do not have a child outside marriage( that is not a guarantee) 

There are many other cultural reasons for child marriage. In India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, some communities have a strong social stigma against girls being married after puberty. Some cultures believe that menstruation is induced by intercourse ( seriously)

Some also fear that if girls receive an education, they will be less willing to fulfill their traditional roles as wife and mother. The number of child marriages often increases during conflicts or natural disasters, when families seek protection for their daughters or money for themselves. ( bull shit).

I will now go on to tell you the emotional and health implications; likely to die at child birth, have higher chance of actually contacting HIV/aids, most likely to be beaten, threatened, enslaved and sexually exploited by their husbands ( they are young and impressionable what do you expect), the so called reason of poverty justifying the marriage is a situation this girls are likely to remain in and barley any chance at education.

All these also happen in Nigeria in the north, please help stop child marriage its a reality many innocent girls find themselves in this situation they don't understand themselves let alone know how to come out of it.