The Money Wives Of Becheve

Cross River State is known for its beautiful culture, amazing carnivals, tourist sites, and its rich scenery. But recently, it has come to be known for something else, something dark and sinister: the money brides of Becheve.

In the rural community of Becheve, a remote village just a few miles from Obudu Cattle Ranch, the ancient and disturbing tradition of money wives persists. In 2022, you would think the concept of child marriage is now a thing of the past or at the very least a practice restricted to northern Nigeria. Sadly, recent events have revealed that this is far from the truth.

On Monday 23rd of October, Tunde Onakoya, the CEO of Chess In Slums (an NGO that uses chess to give out-of-school children access to education), drew attention to this problem on Twitter. He indicated that in the rural community of Becheve in Cross Rivers state, female children were being married off by their families to pay off the family debt.

Who Is A Money Wife?

In Becheve, female children are married off as young as 4 years old. Parents exchange their daughters to offset their debt or sell them off to receive food items like yams, goats, or even monetary compensation for as little as N10,000 (22.81 USD as of October 2022). Under this practice, the girl becomes dead to her family as soon as she is married off. She is not allowed to return to her family, even if her husband beats, tortures, or maltreats her.

Several NGOs have attempted to reach out to the people of this community to stop this barbaric practice, but these efforts have failed, mainly because this practice is a source of pride to the men of this community. It is heartbreaking to see a girl of just 4 years old being married off as a money wife, and this practice violates the rights of the girl child as provided in several legal provisions within Nigeria, specifically the Child Rights Act.

Child Rights Act

The Nigerian Senate promulgated the Child Rights Act (2003) to domesticate UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child held in 1991. This Act defines a child as any person below the age of 18 years. It provides that the interest of every child must be prioritized by its parents, the Nigerian Government, and all other parties responsible for the child’s well-being.

Although not all Nigerian states have adopted the Child Rights Act (especially Northern states), Cross River State created the Child Rights Law of 2009 to adopt the federal Act, making its provisions enforceable within the state.

Under the Child Rights Act, children in Nigeria have a right to all the human rights itemized in Chapter IV of the Nigerian Constitution and more, including;

1. Right to a name, parental care, protection, and maintenance
2. Right to life,
3. Right to human dignity,
4. Right to free, compulsory, and universal basic education,
5. Freedom of religion, thought, and conscience
6. Freedom of association and peaceful assembly
7. Right to health and primary health care services
8. Right to privacy and family life
9. Freedom of movement
10. Freedom from discrimination, etc.

This Act also expressly prohibits certain acts against children, including:

1. Child marriage
2. Child betrothal
3. Exploitative labor
4. Sexual Intercourse with a child
5. Inflicting tattoos and tribal marks on children
6. Using children for criminal activities such as drug trafficking, etc.

To effectively enforce the provisions of the Child Rights Act, certain agencies were established such as the National Human Rights Commission, the children’s department of the Ministry of Women Affairs, the Child Rights Advocacy Group of Nigeria, and so on. These agencies have made several efforts to curb the menace of child abuse and child labor in Nigeria, but there is only so much they can do.

Until the average Nigerian takes the issue of child’s rights seriously, the cycle of child abuse will never end. When Tunde Onakoya posted about the money brides on Twitter, some people took this as another opportunity to insult “feminists.” According to them, Nigerian feminists will never take action to stop problems like these but would rather spend their time hating men.

It is quite strange how people can leave the substance of such a pertinent issue to chase shadows instead. These people look for any opportunity to do the exact thing they accuse Twitter feminists of doing. They spew hateful comments rather than lend their voices to the cause to rescue millions of girls who are victims of child marriage.

Eventually, some women responded, indicating that several efforts had been made to put a stop to this custom, albeit these efforts got little attention on social media. One NGO in particular, the Girdle Advocacy Project, took to Twitter to share their experiences while working against this custom as far back as 2018.

After rebutting the claim that no woman had attempted to stop this custom, they then said that these women sounded jealous of the attention Tunde was getting and should have tried to reach out to him to work together instead. Others claimed that the women were playing the victim card, using the fact that they were women as an excuse for why they could not do more.

The sad reality is that such people do not care about the actual victims of child marriage or the efforts being made to stop this crime. They will say whatever to trivialize the issue rather than contribute to rescuing these girls. One can only wonder how people ignore the menace of child marriage, child abuse, and child rights violations, choosing instead to score points on Twitter.

Finally

All over the world, there have been efforts to reduce the number of out-of-school children and give female children equal access to education. To see that a practice as barbaric as the tradition of money brides still exists in Nigeria is appalling. The excuse that this is part of their tradition is invalid. Man created tradition, not the other way around. Customs made to benefit men can be unmade, especially when they serve no reasonable purpose.

The reality now is that this custom is simply a way for some men to cover up their pedophilia under the guise of tradition. By taking a child in exchange for financial debt, they feed their egos and satisfy their sexual desires at the expense of the child. The parents of the child also avoid their parental responsibility, choosing instead to use that child to offset their debt.

So far, various NGOs have made commendable efforts to rid Cross River State of this practice. On our part, we must call on the government of Cross Rivers state as well as the Federal government, to put an immediate end to this ridiculous practice.

Kindly lend your voice to this cause by donating to any of the NGOs that support these young girls. Most importantly, our voice is where our strength lies. Speak out against all forms of child abuse, whatever they may be, wherever they occur, through any means necessary.

All images are sourced from twitter