Hebephilic Marriages Are Still Very Common Than You Might Have Ever Thought

A 70-year-old Hausa man marries a 15-year-old girl in Niger state, Nigeria. Clearly the girl in the picture seemed to might have not completely gone through her puberty changes.

These pedophilic marriages are commonly practiced in the northern parts of Nigeria, where girls as young as 8-years old, not old enough to take care of themselves can be married off to men old enough to be their ancestors. Most times these marriages are slave trades and being disguised as marriages, in a bid for the girl’s parents to pay off their debts or to become wealthy.

The main factor that champion this drastic act is poverty, lack of education, and strong social and religious traditions, because no wealthy parent would sell their under aged beloved girl child to an old man in the name of marriage. It is more common now than before but every report media are either occupied with one thing or chose not to continue reporting these matters.

In northern Nigeria, parents have complained that the quality of education is so poor that schooling cannot be considered viable alternative to marriage for their daughters.

The Child Rights Act of the 2003 constitution which sets the age of marriage to be 18-years-old, which was passed in 2003 is yet to be implemented by some northern states. Yet no record of justice has been served to the both monsters who marry off their children and those who married them.