Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, made the appeal yesterday in Abuja during the review of the National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria, organised by Ford Foundation, in collaboration with the Development Research and Projects Centre (DRPC), National Coalition of Civil Society to End Child Marriage in Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Women’ Affairs.
She said the full implementation of the policy would make it an offence for any girl or boy to be married off before the age of 18, thus giving the child enough time to complete at least his or her senior secondary school and be psychologically stable and physically mature.
While stressing the importance of the strategy to meeting set goals and targets, Director of Programmes, DRPC, Dr. Stanley Ukpai, pledged that his organisation would contribute in the area of building the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to enable them to deliver on set targets.
