A CRITICAL DISCOURSE OF GIRL-CHILD MARRIAGE/SLAVERY IN SELECTED NIGERIAN FILM

Abstract

Until recent past, girl-child slavery/marriage, guided by unscrupulous African culture, has posed as major practice in the Nigerian state in the 21stCentury. This cankerworm, manifesting through early marriage, money marriage, commercial sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and other forms of abuses on the women folk, weakens women participation in economic, political, religious, and social development, thus, increases the issues of pain, suffering, sickness, and death of the people and underdevelopment to the Nigerian 5state as portrayed in Stephanie Linus Dry. Dry is a 21st century film that interrogates girl-child marriage/slavery, money marriage, discrimination, deprivation and inequality against the women. Amongst the major findings is that girl-child marriage/slavery has provided impetus for dramatic and argumentative representations by critics and dramatist over the years, yet, the menace is highly prevalent in the Nigerian state in the 21st century, mostly in the Northern regions. The study therefore aims at interrogating the cause and effects of girl-child marriage/slavery in the Nigerian state in the 21st century. To achieve this, Radical Feminism Theory and Content Analytical Methodology are used as guide. More so, the study recommends that any culture, tradition, or norm that is responsible that for girl-child marriage/slavery in the Nigerian space should be abolished for equity and development to be ascertained.