Research shows an 80% drop in child marriages in Nigeria through a program involving education and local leaders.
In northern Nigeria, an educational program significantly reduced child marriages by encouraging girls to stay in school, as detailed in a study published in Nature. The initiative, developed by researchers and implemented by the Centre for Girls Education in Abuja, involved more than 1,000 adolescent girls from 18 communities in the states of Borno, Kaduna, and Kano.
The program, known as Pathways to Choice, offered out-of-school girls accelerated learning in subjects like reading, mathematics, life skills, and business skills in dedicated safe spaces during its first year. In the second year, it focused on helping girls return to formal schooling, with support for school fees, uniforms, tutoring, and mentoring.
Role of Community Leaders
Local religious leaders played a key role in the program's success, attending initial meetings and endorsing the initiative from the start, which helped recruit nearly all eligible girls in participating communities. This collaboration addressed cultural barriers, including skepticism about education and safety concerns amid regional violence.
Nearly 80% of girls in northern Nigeria marry before age 18, with many dropping out of school beforehand. The study highlighted factors like fear of kidnappings, which have affected over 1,700 schoolchildren since 2014, and economic pressures that push families toward early marriages.
The research was a randomized control trial conducted between 2018 and 2020, comparing 1,181 girls in program communities to those in non-participating ones. By the end of the study, 79% of girls in the program remained unmarried, compared to about 14% in the control group, resulting in an 80% decrease in marriage likelihood.
Co-authors, including medical anthropologist Daniel Perlman from the University of California, Berkeley, and economist Isabelle Cohen from the University of Washington, emphasized that the program also provided vocational training for girls who did not return to school. Child marriage remains illegal in Nigeria under the Child Rights Act, though some northern states have not adopted it, relying instead on Sharia law.
Only about 41% of women under 35 in northwestern and northeastern Nigeria have attended school, with high rates of early marriage—48% of girls marry before age 15 in the north. The study's findings suggest that community-driven education efforts can effectively counter these trends, potentially informing similar interventions elsewhere.
