Children as young as seven sold as child brides inNiger

Children as young as seven are being sold off as
child brides in Niger as the country falls into the
grips of mass starvation, according to the charity
World Vision.
Child marriage is a fact of life for one-third of girls in
Niger but aid workers claim there has been a spike
in families selling off daughters as they can no
longer afford to feed.
Parents have told activists that while they are
unhappy with selling their daughters to men for a
price of a few goats or other livestock, the
exhaustion of family food stocks meant they had no
alternative.
Fatima Soumana, a child protection officer, said she
had discovered the seven-year-old who had been
married off to a cousin. Mrs Soumana said the
family had been affected by a series of tragedies,
including the death of the child's mother while
giving birth.
"The girl's mother died in childbirth and I went to
visit the family and to register the birth at the
courthouse with an aunt and a seven-year girl old
came with us" Mrs Soumana said. "When I asked
who she was, the aunt told me she was her
daughter-in-law. I realised that the young girl had
been sold to the family and married off to their 20-
year-old son."
Launching a public appeal for £5 million to feed the
stricken nation, the charity said that food shortages
were affecting 6.4 million, with up to one million
children at risk of starvation.
Aid workers said the crisis, which stretches across
the sub-Saharan region after drought and crop
failure, is to worsen steadily as it faces the lean
season of June and July.
Justin Byworth, the head of World Vision, said the
food crisis was passing unnoticed by the wider
world despite the horrific consequences. "Niger has
been in a worsening situation since the end of last
year but there is no one line of disaster that has
been crossed," he said. "It is an emergency not a
catastrophe but families are doing extreme things
to cope.
"I have an eight-year old daughter myself and I
could not imagine that happening in a family."
In a country where laws are regarded as a colonial
imposition decades after independence from
France, Mrs Soumana explained that the legal age
for marriage is 15 for girls and 16 for boys.
"In reality girls are married off as young as seven
years old," she said. "There are many reasons for
early child marriage but the food crisis is making it
worse."
Fatima Ismaghail, 13, was rescued from an
arranged marriage in the Tera district of western
Niger by a local judge.
"My father sold me to a man who was 20-years-old
and my cousin. Nobody told me about it, and I
never discussed it with my mother or my
grandmother but I planned to run away if it went
ahead," she said. "I heard on the radio that young
girls are losing their lives when their parents marry
them off, because they have children when they are
far too young and may die in childbirth. I was very
afraid that this would happen to me.
"I don't understand why my parents gave me away
to be married so young but I would like to get
married and have children when I grow up."
Touayi Oumar, her mother, said she had felt
powerless to stop the marriage.
"I'm so pleased that this marriage was cancelled. I
want my daughter to be able to choose the person
that she marries and it should be somebody that
she loves and who makes her happy," she said.
"What can a child bring to a marriage with a man?
Children know nothing of the duties of marriage
and having sex with a man is sometimes difficult
even for an older women, how can a child be
expected to do that?"
Girls growing up in Niger face a host of
disadvantages including an average of four years at
school and stunting from a lack of food. According
to a Save the Children survey of 165 countries
released this month, it is the worst place in the
world to be a mother with a one in 16 risk of dying
in childbirth. There is also a one in seven chance the
child will die as an infant.