The United Nations International Children Fund (UNICEF) has said that about 10 million additional girls in Nigeria are at risk of child marriage due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
UNICEF in a statement marking the 2021 International Women’s Day therefore tasked Nigerian government to extinguish child marriage in the country.
The statement which was signed by its Executive Director, Henrietta Fore, noted that before the COVID-19 outbreak, 100 million girls were at risk of child marriage in the next decade, despite significant reduction in several countries in recent years.
According to UNICEF; “The last ten years, the proportion of young women globally who were married as children had decreased by 15 per cent, from nearly 1 in 4 to 1 in 5, the equivalent of some 25 million marriages averted, a gain that is now under threat.
“COVID-19 has made an already difficult situation for millions of girls even worse. Shuttered schools, isolation from friends and support networks, and rising poverty have added fuel to a fire, the world was already struggling to put out”.
UNICEF noted that school closures, economic stress, service disruptions, pregnancy, and parental deaths due to the pandemic are putting the most vulnerable girls at increased risk of child marriage.
It further said that worldwide, an estimated 650 million girls and women were married in childhood, with about half of those occurring in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India and Nigeria.
According to UNICEF, “To off-set the impacts of COVID-19 and end the practice by 2030 – the target set out in the Sustainable Development Goals progress must be significantly accelerated”.
