FEAVA WALLK (CHILD NOT BRIDE) posted by Odeniran Deborah Olamide

My day was hectic! Hectic in the right way though *winks*. It was all about the FEAVA walk, enough of the Violence on the female child!
FEAVA walk had been planned even before the NNA amended the constituition. Was surprised when some peeps asked if the walk was fixed because of the so called "amended" constitution. Saw updates on BBM, "A child, not a bride and all this was because of the "so called constitution" which was amended.

The Nigerian National Assembly on July 17,2013 amended the constitution and changed the laws of The Federal Republic of Nigeria.On this day, the senate altered Section 29 (a) of the constitution that stipulates that a woman shall not be qualified for marriage until she attains 18 years of age, as they deleted age specification for women being married from the draft constitution and left the marriage age for women open.

 Several media reports on the constitutional review debate at the Senate give the impression that underage marriage has been endorsed by the Senate Chambers. Facts are that S.29 of the 1979 Constitution permits a Nigerian citizen of ‘full age’ to renounce his or her citizenship by declaration in a prescribed manner, for which purpose ‘full age’ was stated to be 18 years and above.

The subsection also provides that, ‘any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age’. In its current efforts to review the Constitution, the Senate Committee had determined that the particular subsection should be deleted, basically because citizenship has no bearing on gender, as for example, voting, the right to drive a car, possess a weapon or such similar social interactions that are evolving or are germane to a democratic Nation.

This means that anyone can pick up any girl starting from age zero and get married to her under this new daft amendment. It is no surprise that the sponsor of this amendment is no other than senator Ahmad Sani Yerima, the former Governor of Zamfara State who, about two years ago, took a thirteen year old Egyptian girl as his bride, in violation of the constitution’s provision at that time and when i checked on the list of senators that .
The justification for this new law as presented by the above-named senator was Islamic law. According to him, a female has attained womanhood/adulthood once she is married. In this reverse reasoning, it is not the attainment of maturity or adulthood that qualifies for marriage rather it is marriage that confers adulthood.
Following this recent development, aggrieved citizens decided to stage protest in different states today July 20 2013.
The protest was designed to get people to sign a petition, with the estimate of two million people, that would be submitted to the State Houses of Assembly, chronicling the grouses of the aggrieved persons on the proposed law which many have termed as bad.

This is the most absurd thing any sane government could ever do. With the teeming number of teenage pregnancies and the social and health hazards that we are already battling with makes me wonder if our law makers are really thinking at all.
Join the protest, sign your petition too.
http://www.change.org/petitions/united-nations-stop-the-nigerian-senate-from-making-under-age-marriage-the-law?utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition


pictures of the FEAVA (Female Empowerment Against Violence and Abuse) WALK

I and Banke

Dunni, Banke and Deborah

FEAVA

Rollcall at Yaba Tech

Deb and Larry(my placard tho X_X)

Adesuwa

Real MEN are also support this