FEATURE ARTICLE

E O EkeTuesday, October 18, 2016
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CHILD MARRIAGE, IS SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN

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hat our world is full of evil is neither news nor surprising. What I find unbearable is the silence, complicity and cold indifference of men, who lay claim to higher morality, in the face of evil. It is their indifference and inaction that allow evil to persist.

The level of child abuse that is taking place in Nigeria and in the north in particular, under the guise of Islam, is simply unacceptable. In the last few years, some very despicable, morally bankrupt and sexually perverted rich Nigerians in position of power and authority have been hiding behind Islam to sexually abuse innocent young girls.

The latest is the abduction and forced 'marriage' of 14 year old Christian girl to Emir of Kastina. This abuse and violence against young girls is simply paedophilia in the name of Islam. In my view, to sexually abuse a minor, is one of the most atrocious evil any human being can commit. I cannot imagine a God, who would approve of such evil against innocent and defenceless children.

I am the son of one woman. The brother of four sisters. The husband of one wife and the father of three daughters. I am able to imagine the pain the 14 year old is enduring. This 14 year old is a minor and therefore cannot consent to marriage.

She has been abducted to be sexually abused by a man, old enough to be her grandfather. This is sordid, evil and unacceptable and, no society can tolerate such abuse of minors and claim to be enlightened.

As an Igbo and a Nigerian, I am proud of both identities. However, Nothing makes me more ashamed to be a Nigerian, than when I see old men in position to know better, find reason to sexually abuse young girls in the most criminal way possible as the Emir of Kastina has done to this innocent 14 year old school girl.

The family of Isiyaku Tanko of Warkaza community in the Kudun Kankara Local Government Area of Katsina State alleged that their 14 year old daughter, who the Emir of Katsina Claims he has married was abducted on August 16, 2016, by one Jamilu Lawal, an aide of the emir, who worked in the palace.

This is a premeditated sexual crime against a child, which no civilised society should accept, no matter how highly placed and powerful, the perpetrators. We cannot haves society, where Emirs and the rich and powerful are at liberty to abduct young girls, for their sexual pleasures.

This is a heinous crime committed by rich, bigoted, ignorant, evil minded and perverted people, who believe that they have the power to do anything to a people they conquered and hold in contempt.

The Emir of Katsina is unashamedly defending his criminal behaviour with the Quran, which he claims allows him to abduct children and sexually abuse them in the name of forced marriage.

This is another reason why Nigeria should be restructure, so that Hausas can be freed from domination and abuse by the Funani oligarchy.

This crime is going on because of the medieval mind set, which Islam can instil in some already damaged minds like that of the Emir of Katsina. No country can develop when there are men free to commit such crimes against children. A good society protects children from abuses.

For all their sanctimonious attitude towards morality, liberal democracies shame Islamic nations and Christian fundamentalist by their protection of rights of women and children. By their adherence to the rule of law, kindness, tolerance, love, equality, justice and non discrimination on the basis of religion and ethnicity, liberal democracies demonstrate the superiority of liberal values over religious beliefs and literary interpretation of scriptures to justify behaviour.

While toxic fundamentalist Islam of the type prevalent in north Nigeria, fuss about how short a woman's skirt should be, insist on women covering themselves with black cloth like masquerades and defends the sexual abuse of young girls, western democracies ensures that sex crimes like the one committed by the Emir of Katsina are punished appropriately and all vulnerable children and women protected against abuse of their the fundamental human rights.

I am sick of ignorant, bigoted sanctimonious and pretentious religious fanatics, who hold literary and primitive understanding of the transcendence, insisting on imposing their bigoted, sex obsessed narrow minded, pitiless and soulless morality on all in the name of religion. This is the same mindset that gave the world Islamic terrorist groups like Boko Haram, which kill and abduct young girls for sexual pleasure.

I cannot find any reason, why a human being with sense of what God really means, would justify the abduction of innocent girls for the sexual pleasures of old men, who have not gone beyond how human beings saw the world and life in the dark ages.

Nigerians cannot simply continue to tolerate this abuse of innocent and helpless girls. It is time for the people to reclaim the right of young girls to live their lives, without such abominable abuses in the name of religion or culture and enjoy God given freedom and power of choice, under the rule of law alone.

A society that fails to protect young girls against sexual abuse by predators and perverts like the Emir of Katsina, is a society that has lost its soul and is in darkness.

This sexual abuse of innocent young girls, must now come to end. It is an abominable and unconscionable crime.

Young girls are the best and most beautiful thing ever created by God. The future of humanity rests in their hands and enlightenment is to value your mother, sisters, wife and daughters and, by so doing; value all women as human beings of equal value to men.

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