By Chris Ochayi

ABUJA—The Federal Government has developed a technical working group to develop policies and legislation that will end girl-child marriage in the country, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Aisha Alhassan, has said. Senator Alhassan disclosed this in Abuja, just as the Chairman of the National Population Commission, NPC, Chief Eze Duruiheoma, charged state governments yet to domesticate the Child Rights Act to urgently do so for the welfare of Nigerian children.

They spoke at a media briefing to commemorate the 2016 world population day, on the theme Investing in Teenage Girls, organised by NPC. They agreed that early child marriage was an act of violence against the girl-child. In his address, Chairman of NPC, Duruiheoma regretted that the conditions which majority of the teenage girls lived and the challenges they had to surmount on a daily basis cut a pathetic picture.

In her remarks, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Alhassan, who was represented by Mrs, Georgete Azogu, the Director, Child Development in the ministry, said: “Today’s adolescence is tomorrow’s adult. As we all commemorate 2016 World Population Day, I urge stakeholders at all level to take appropriate measures to ensure the adolescent girls meet their full potentials.

“The Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and other stakeholders are planning to begin a national campaign to end child marriage in Nigeria. “We have developed a technical working group that comprises all stakeholders: we have got the directors and state directors of Child Development to be part of it. “We have a consultant going round to engage the states and all the stakeholders, including NGOs and faith-based organisations.”