Child Marriage: We are not Overreacting.

"Also condemning any attempt to legalise child marriage, Tofa, in a statement yesterday from Mecca, Saudi Arabia, said it was wrong to marry off young girls.

He said: “Some ignorant people, or shall I say mischievous people, will always use religion for their personal and political ends. They hardly even care that they are dragging the image of ‘their’ religion into the mud. As long as they can satisfy their desires, for them any statement is justified. It is very sad when people of meagre knowledge about a matter do disseminate nonsense to an ignorant public, and most people who should know better keep mute about it.
 “What perplexes me even more is from which section of the Shari'ah they are quoting when they say a matter is Islamic? Marrying off innocent young girls has nothing to do with religion. It is a bad and cruel social and cultural practice that in these days and times must be rid of by whatever feasible means. It is a practice by people who are backward, and who do not care about the progress of their communities or the society at large.”
He urged the National Assembly to be brave enough to enact a law that would prohibit the marrying off of girls that are below the age of 18 just as he urged the federal and state governments to give free education to all indigent boys and girls to discourage child marriage".

Above statement was credited to Alahji Bashir Othman Tofa, a Muslim from Kano State, Nigeria. He called up enough courage to speak the truth and challenge men and women who hide under the cloak of religion to destroy the fabrics of humanity for reasons that defy commonsense; for purposes that are self serving; for living of unending hedonistic pursuit; and for extremism that starts and ends with  pursuit of control over the lives of others, especially the vulnerable. Religion is only a cowardly facade to hide mischief, oppression, sense of insecurity, complex and other vices not compatible with humanity.
Child marriage is despicable, an act of gross child abuse and the "ultimate" child rape.
We must rise up in one accord across the continent of Africa and condemn in the strongest terms available any practice that destroys the future of Africa at the very foundation. Children will never grow up if we do not allow them grow through their childhood, and such unfortunate situation will be the sad tale of a community that will never grow.
We must also press for the establishment of functional institutions that will properly manage victims of child abuse.
Appropriate paediatric forensic medical services should be in place with requisite expertise and infrastructure and must work closely with the police, justice system and child protection agencies in providing holistic care to victims of child abuse and prosecuting alleged offenders.

Meanwhile, many thanks to Tofa for siding with commonsense and for speaking up. We hope other people of our shared humanity will "unmute" and tell the Yerimas of this world that one word aptly defines their actions and inactions against humanity: Shame!