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No of pages:73

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Abstract:

Throughout the world marriage is, regarded as a moment of celebration and a milestone in adult life. Sadly, as this study makes it clear, the practice of early marriage gives no such case for celebration. All too often, the imposition of marriage patter upon a child means that a girl or boy’s childhood is cut short, and their fundamental rights are compromised. Efforts towards the liberation of the girl-child from the shackles of early marriage have continued to be resisted with tradition, culture and religion in parts of Nigeria.

The participants were one hundred and ninety-three (193) respondents. This study looks at public perceptions on child marriage. A key factor is poverty, with the marriage of children often seen as the strategy for economic survival. Besides, it is, perceived as a way to protect girls and to provide some stability in situations where societies are under extreme pressure; this study also examines the social, cultural, economic and religious determinants of child marriage, and public perceptions of the consequences of child marriage. There are facts on complications and even death in pregnancy and childbirth of wives too young to, safely bear children. Education statistics reveals that the large members of children particularly girls who drop out of school because of early marriage and the majority of them, that is, many young married women lament the fact that they cannot even read hence they have to leave school early for marriage. The study adopted multistage sampling techniques using Cluster sampling method, simple random and systematic sampling techniques for the study. The results show that child marriage is rooted in our customs and traditions,superstition and lack of awareness is a determinant of child marriage, the economic situation is contributing to early child marriage and young girls are often regarded as an economic burden, marrying them off at a very early age is seen as reducing the financial burden of the family.
Child marriage infringes significantly on the fundamental human rights of the child, child marriage reduces their chances of acquiring adequate and quality education to enable them become economically independent and socially functional, child marriage has intellectual, psychological and emotional impact on the child and child marriage hampers the child's personal development. The result equally identifies the need for counseling intervention to be able to gain the already lost personality realization in early marriage. Based on findings, it was recommended that the federal government of Nigeria should revisit the extent to which counts are implementing the existing relevant marriage laws regularly, in fact she should similarly modernize these laws to suit the modern civilization.

Besides, her compulsory free education should be extended to all cities and border villages and her law enforcement should be much more vigilant than ever before so as to keep the young ones (especially girls)at school for a better future mission. Strategies to end child marriage in the study area should include mass and compulsory education of girls, provision of other options to early marriage and childbearing and involvement of fathers in preventing and ending the practice.