The marriage business

Photo from IRIN/Phuong Tran

Niger has the world's highest rate of child marriage. It used to be a rural tradition but is is fast becoming a cross border business.

The north of the country has some of the highest rates of poverty in Niger, itself one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. In the south, child/forced marriage happens mainly in rural communities but in the north, even in urban areas, families are selling their daughters to men in nearby countries. Matrimonial agencies have been set up to facilitate the "matches". Tuareg girls, like the one in the picture, fetch a higher price because of their beauty. Girls are often married off by the age of 12 even though the legal age is 15, and proposals are in place to raise this to 18.

Early marriage can lead to many different problems, including

• abuse because of the imbalance of power;
• complications in pregnancy/child birth;
• fistula, resulting from the complications during childbirth, and can in turn lead to being outcast and abandoned;
• a halt to education meaning the girls will always be dependent and subservient;
• a lack of knowledge and understanding of issues such as birth control or reproductive health with consequences that can increase the HIV Aids rates.

In Nigeria poverty combined with traditional values are again the driving forces for child marriage. Attempts to make under age marriage illegal have come in for some severe criticism. Often the critics cite promiscuity as the reason, believing that the longer a girl is unmarried, the more likely she will become promiscuous. In some places in northern Nigeria, most girls are married by the age of 14 and to much older and usually wealthier men.

In Mauritania, girls as young as six can be married off to men in Gulf states, in a similar pattern to Nigeria's. What once was a rural tradition has become an urban business. The girls are smuggled over the borders by intermediaries or family members.

One girl, now 14, who escaped from a marriage she was forced into at the age of eight, says that she hopes to be able to go to school and play like other girls, as every child should. In 2006, it is estimated that 14 million girls were forced into marriage in sub-Saharan Africa, 14 million girls who lost their childhood.

You change your wife the way you change a car in Kano

Photo from Flickr/MikeBlyth. Creative Commons licence.

In northern Nigeria, according to the Population Council, 45% of girls are married by the age of 15, and 73% by the age of 18. Most marriages are arranged by the family to men who are on average 12 years older than their wives. Girls are brought up to believe it leads to freedom, independence, but the sacrifice is education and real independence.

Kano is an ancient city in northern Nigeria, the second largest in Nigeria. There is a high divorce rate here, where a new bride is considered a status symbol, adding to the vulnerability of the young wives. A girl can be divorced by the age of 18 and have children to support. "The way you change a car is the way you change a wife in Kano. You give birth to a few children and you can find yourself divorced for the slightest excuse," says Salamatu Da'u, a worker with a Nigerian AIDS service organisation, the Society for Family Health.

So they find themselves with limited education but having to earn in income. Inevitably this leads to menial jobs, but can also lead the way to sex work in a region where condom use is very low. Kano itself has an HIV/Aids rate that is below the national average, but among the brothel based sex workers in the city, this rises to 49.1%. These sex workers were also least likely to use condoms with their customers, and had limited understanding of how to prevent HIV transmission. Almost all the women working in the brothels had either been divorced or had run away to avoid being forced into marriage.

Northern Nigeria is very conservative, where discussion about sex is less open and literacy is low. The Society for Family Health workers are encouraging traditional leaders to promote the use of condoms. Some have, others lend silent support, but there is a long way to go, and so many different but inter-relating strands. to the problem.

Source IRIN: Underground sex in the conservative north
Child marriage
Education: the social vaccine

Tropical Legumes Project

Legumes are the third largest family of plants, and many species among them are very nutritious and/or improve the quality of soil. However they haven’t so far received a great deal of attention to increase yields and help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Soybeans

ICRISTAT, the International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics are conducting a research and development project to improve the productivity of legumes. This will be funded for three years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will act in partnership with the Program for African Seed Systems to ensure the availability of the seeds to African farmers.

Peanuts

Legumes are rich in protein and minerals and sometimes referred to as "poor man’s meat". They hold great promise for fighting hunger, increasing income and improving soil fertility.

Black eyed beans

The research is being carried out in 14 different countries in Africa, as well as in Asia.

Water hyacinth

It sounds lovely and the flowers look lovely, but it can be a pest, as many people in tropical and sub-tropical areas will know. It can grow extremely rapidly to form mats which may be as much as two metres thick.

It has caused a problem in 2005 on Lake Victoria in both Kenya and Uganda. It was controlled using mechanical and biological means, with a 90% success. Given that it spreads quickly and also floats around, it's not surprising that it once again is causing a problem.
The problems it causes are:

• Hindering water transport
• Clogging various water supply systems
• Harbouring various diseases
• Causing water to evaporate nearly twice as quickly through transpiration
• Impeding fishing
• Unbalancing the ecosystem and reducing biodiversity.

Possible solutions:

• Biological control using a variety of insects and fungi. This method can take a long time to have an effect.
• Chemical control but this may harm the environment.
• Physical control by removing the weed - only suitable for small areas

Another approach altogether is to find a use for the plant. Possibilities, some realised, some still being investigated:

• Paper - the fibre needs to be blended with waste paper or jute to produce a reasonable quality (Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, and India)
• Fibreboard - for general purposes indoors, and a bituminised version for roofing is being investigated (Bangladesh)
• Yarn and rope (Bangladesh)
• Basket work (Philippines)
• Charcoal briquetting - under investigation (Kenya)
• Biogas production - under investigation (Bangladesh)
• Water purification
• Animal fodder (China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand)
• Fertiliser (Sri Lanka)
• Fish feed - Chinese carp, tilapia, silver carp, and silver dollar fish will all eat water hyacinth.

If a commercial use can be found for the weed, then perhaps it can be kept under control on Lake Victoria. With so many potential uses, surely it's just a matter of time.
Sources: IRIN and PracticalAction

A very recent (January 2016) TED talk by Achenyo Idachaba covers some of the issues and offers one solution.  Achenyo Idachaba is the founder of MitiMeth, a social enterprise which aims to transform the ecological problem into enployment and products in Nigeria.