Abstract
Nigeria and Uganda have both ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and have enacted domestic legislations that provide for the promotion and protection of the rights and welfare of children. Sadly, child marriage still exists and is one of the leading causes of morbidity and school dropout among children in both countries. This paper examines the legal and policy frameworks for combating child marriage and highlights the trends, challenges and prospects from a socio-legal perspective. It reveals a number of systematic procedural problems in the legal and policy apparatus for addressing child marriage. In responding to these challenges, the authors argue that the Nigerian and Ugandan governments should enhance access to basic education and initiate institutional reforms pertinent to the legal framework for effective enforcement of the laws that address child marriage.
Highlights
The quandary of child marriage has recently attracted renewed interest with the emergence of stronger consensus to end the practice
Nigeria and Uganda have both ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and have enacted domestic legislations that provide for the promotion and protection of the rights and welfare of children
Burris observes that in countries with a high child marriage rate, cultural and social practices are more valuable in the community than laws and regulations, which results in the ineffective enforcement of domestic laws prohibiting these marriages.[69]
Summary
The quandary of child marriage has recently attracted renewed interest with the emergence of stronger consensus to end the practice. A plethora of international instruments including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Child Rights Convention (CRC) and other declarations have been adopted to uphold these principles Despite these efforts, current statistics indicate that the rate of child marriage is still alarming across the globe and in Africa .[9] The seriousness of the menace of child marriage is succinctly captured by United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in its 2014 Progress report which emphasises that without the adoption of effective and efficient strategies to combat child marriage, more than 280 million girls alive today are at risk of becoming brides by the time they turn 18 years. The United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, ‘ICDP programme of action’, Principle 9, Action 4.18 & Action 5.5, at: http://www.un.org/popin/icpd2.htm (accessed on 2 May 2017)
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