A Nigerian rights group has launched a petition to stop plans by religious leaders and a state lawmaker to push 100 girls and young women into marriage in a mass ceremony next week, which have sparked outrage in the West African nation.
The plans, first revealed by Abdulmalik Sarkindaji, speaker of the national assembly in the largely Muslim northern state of Niger, were criticised by Nigeria's women's affairs minister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, who said she would seek a court injunction to stop the ceremony and establish if any of the girls were minors.
Sarkindaji said the girls and young women were orphans whose parents were killed in attacks by kidnapping gangs that roam northern Nigeria. He pledged to pay dowries to the bridegrooms.
The rights group Concerned Nigerian Citizens, in a petition launched on Wednesday that has garnered over 7,000 signatures, said the Niger state government should prioritise the education of the girls instead of forcing them into marriage.
Reuters
