The United Nations Women Africa has revealed that Nigeria has the highest number of child brides in the world. They further disclosed that 23 million girls are married off in childhood. This was revealed ahead of the UN conference that is to hold in Lagos on Tuesday, December 4. The conference which will be addressing the cultural practices against girls and women, including child marriage and female genital mutilation is expected to be attended by traditional rulers from different African countries. In a statement released by the UN National Information Officer, Dr Seyi Soremekun, on Saturday, December 2, it was disclosed that the UN Women Africa in collaboration with United Nations Population Fund and United Nations Children’s Fund had made a necessary choice of engaging African traditional authorities central to addressing the cultural norms and practices harmful to women and girls’ well-being.
To this, the UN Women said that it had launched various regional consultations with traditional rulers and institutions to address the challenging issues as well as facilitate a framework for the African Union summit with traditional and cultural authorities on ending child marriage and the Federal Government taking place in January 2019. The statement in part reads: “In West and Central Africa, the region with the highest prevalence of child marriage, the practice continues unabated with progress registered in reversing the trend at its slowest and lowest in the world. 
“Countries such as Niger, Chad and the Central African Republic are currently peaked at 76, 72 and 68 per cent, respectively and rated as having the highest prevalence in the world.” It added, “The region is also home to six of the 10 countries globally with the highest prevalence rate of child marriage: Niger, Central African Republic, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. “While Niger has the highest prevalence of child marriage in the world, at 76 per cent, Nigeria is home to the largest number of child brides in Africa, with 23 million girls and women married off in childhood.” 
It is pertinent to note that they also expressed their concern over the outrageous number of children married before the age of 18, saying that by 2050, the figure would double if no fundamental change is done to reverse that. They also added that in recognition of the need to curb the practices and protect the health and well-being of women and girls of Africa, it would be adding the need to end child marriage in Africa as one of its three cross-regional programmes within its Africa Strategy 2018 – 2021.Photo Credit: Getty
