In Zamfara, conflict forces parents to trade daughters for safety

For 15-year-old Basira Nasiru, childhood in Gidan Goga, a community in the Maradun Local Government Area (LGA) of Zamfara State, once meant school, laughter, dreams, and promises of a bright future.

But in 2023, when she was 13, her life changed when her parents handed her over for marriage to a 23-year-old man, not out of tradition, but fear.

“I wasn’t happy when the news of my marriage got to me because I knew my education would come to an end. I wanted to go to school and become a nurse,” Basira said, narrating her ordeal to this reporter.

Her parents, like many others in Zamfara’s conflict zones, believed marriage would shield her from abduction or sexual violence. Her husband would protect her from bandits and defend her. Unfortunately, that protection was an illusion.

Just days after the wedding, Basira’s husband left the village to find a job, leaving the new bride with her mother. Over the following months, he only returned occasionally, long enough to get her pregnant, then disappeared again.

Marriage, a survival strategy

In Zamfara, north-west Nigeria, child marriage has grown from a cultural tradition to become a crisis management strategy. Families under the constant threat of banditry and displacement now see early marriage as a form of defence, a shield for their daughters against abduction, sexual violence, and social disgrace.

A 2021 report by Save the Children on child marriage revealed that 48 per cent of girls in northern Nigeria are married before age 15, and 78 per cent by age 18. Latest data obtained from Girls Not Brides, a global partnership focused on child marriage, reported nationwide child marriage prevalence at 30.3 per cent before 18, jumping to 52 per cent in the North-west states and 51.1 per cent in the North-east.

In Zamfara alone, 67 per cent of young women aged 20–24 were married before 18.

Armed conflict and violence against girls are among the driving forces behind child marriage. Isa Menasiri, a father of four from Gidan Goga, lost his daughter during a crisis in 2023. His third daughter was kidnapped, and the perpetrators demanded N200,000 as ransom.

“I had no money, so I had to sell my farm and a few other items to rescue my daughter. She was released but already defiled when she returned,” he said.

At the hospital, she was diagnosed with a urinary infection. Sadly, the family could not keep up with her hospital bills. She eventually died.

Mr Menasiri told PREMIUM TIMES that, in the past, parents tried to find proper suitors for their daughters in line with the principles of Islam. However, insecurity has taken such luxury out of their hands, he said. “We don’t have schools or Islamic schools anymore, and that is why we are left with no choice.”

Across the North-west, serial kidnappings and rape have fuelled the perception that early marriage can shield girls from danger. However, this “protection” often strips them of opportunities their parents hope to secure.
Many young men leave for distant cities soon after marriage, abandoning their wives. Girls are left without education, security, or economic opportunity—thrust deeper into vulnerability, exposed to health risks from early pregnancies, and weighed down by neglect.

Like Basira, like Hauwa

When 15-year-old Hauwa Muhammed of Birnin Tudu, a rural resettlement in Gummi LGA, heard about her parents’ plan to marry her off, she knew that marriage would end her childhood rights and aspirations.
“I tried to run away, but my parents warned me that if I left, I shouldn’t return to their house,” she recalled. Now displaced and struggling to survive in Anka, Hauwa sometimes begs her parents for her daily meal while still married.

Bandit attacks and repeated displacements push families to marry off their daughters early, Hadiza Bala, a mother of three in Kaura, a community in Kaura-Namoda LGA in Zamfara, explained in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES.

“We have learnt that once bandits kidnap the girls, they keep them as sex objects and destroy their lives and future. Some don’t come back alive,” she said.
Many parents also see marriage as a way of shifting responsibility at a time when displacement has cut families off from their farms, income, and aid.

Some girls in communities PREMIUM TIMES visited never attended school or dropped out early.

Also, some returned home with children after a divorce. Promises often made to the girls before marriage, such as that a husband would sponsor their education or take them to the city, fade almost immediately after the wedding. This indicates that the early marriage that families thought of as a solution is instead entrenching a cycle of poverty, violence, and lost futures in the communities.

Trapped after vows

Mariam Idris, a 20-year-old from Gidan Goga, became a wife at 13. In seven years of marriage, she gave birth to three children. “I had no feeling for the man,” she recalled. “But I accepted him because my parents believed it was better to be married than to be kidnapped or molested. I did not go back to school after the wedding. I cried every day in the marriage and faced many challenges.”

Ms Idris, a sickle-cell patient, said her husband, now 34, was rarely present, and his family maltreated her. “I have lost touch with him for about five months now because he doesn’t reach out, and we can’t reach him either,” she said. “There was barely food to eat, and I was made to do all the housework despite having babies to attend to. So, I moved back to my parents’ house.”

Like Mariam, many girls interviewed shared similar stories about being abandoned by husbands, trapped in hardship, and carrying the burdens of marriage while still navigating young adulthood.

A 2021 UNICEF report estimated that 7.6 million girls are out of school in Nigeria, 3.9 million at the primary level and 3.7 million at junior secondary. According to the report, nearly half of these out-of-school girls are in the North-west and North-east.

In Zamfara, the numbers are likely even higher due to insecurity and the destruction of schools by bandits. For many girls, marriage marks the end of education. Teachers have fled, and parents, fearing attacks, no longer send children to school. In such an environment, marriage is seen as the only path forward. But without education, economic independence, or emotional support, girls spiral into more profound vulnerability.

Salisu Umar, a community leader and former council official in Gidan Goga, confirmed that there is no formal education facility in the community anymore, as the secondary schools were closed after repeated bandit attacks.

“Even teachers are afraid to come to school,” he said. “The bandits come anytime, morning, night, or in the middle of the day. They kill people, burn our crops, carry away goats, cattle, everything. Sometimes, they even burn the barns where we keep our food. There is no food. No business. Nothing to survive on. We are just living abandoned lives.”

“We think if you marry a girl off, her husband might take her somewhere safe,” he said. “But the reverse is the case. In most situations, they are abandoned and eventually return to their parents’ homes.”

When labour becomes a death sentence

During a visit to Anka town in Anka LGA, PREMIUM TIMES observed that healthcare facilities are on the brink of collapse. Many villages have no health centres at all, and those that exist have been abandoned or shut down after repeated bandit attacks.

Residents travel long distances to the general hospital in Magaji, where services are barely available.
Anka town’s only partially functional health centre operates for limited hours and shuts down on weekends. Run by a lone doctor and a handful of overwhelmed health workers, it is underequipped, short-staffed, and without electricity.

Danla Muhammed, the officer in charge at the health centre in Anka town, admitted that maternal deaths are high in the community. “Whenever a woman is in long labour, we refer them to the general hospital, which is 25 kilometres away. All we can do here is give basic drugs when bleeding or shock begins,” Mr Muhammed said.
For teenage brides with early pregnancy, that distance is often the difference between life and death. Many patronise traditional midwives out of fear that the hospital wouldn’t be open, or that they may not survive the journey to the general hospital.

“From the cases I have seen, most of the girls are inexperienced in managing pregnancies, so their cases are always complicated,” Mr Muhammed said.

“We usually collaborate with the development committee and blood development committees in the community to do house-to-house monitoring of the girls on how to manage pregnancies and take good care of themselves, as most of them usually experience depression during that period.”

Nigeria has one of the world’s highest maternal death burdens. According to the World Health Organisation, Nigeria accounts for 28.3 per cent of global maternal deaths, with an estimated 8,200 women dying each year.

Zamfara is among the hardest hit, with maternal mortality estimated at over 1,000 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Nigeria’s neonatal mortality rate stands at 34 deaths per 1,000 live births, among the highest, with malnutrition, unskilled birth attendants, poor immunisation access, and a lack of postnatal care combining to put newborns at immediate risk.

Ms Idris, the sickle cell patient who married at 13, was rushed to a health centre unconscious during her first delivery, only to find no nurse available. She bled heavily until she was taken on a motorbike to the general hospital. “I survived, but my parents are still paying debts from that delivery,” she said.

For Aisha Umar, also married at 13, her experience nearly took her life. After three days in labour, she was treated only by a local midwife. Now, barely a year later, she is pregnant again and has been abandoned by her husband, who left to find work.

‘Insecurity driving early marriage’

Hammad Muhammad, a community leader in Angwan Shehu Mogaji in Anka, attributed the rise in early marriage to the insecurity ravaging rural Zamfara.

“We don’t endorse early marriage, but the situation has forced many parents into making complex decisions. Some families marry off their daughters out of fear they will be kidnapped or raped by bandits, while others are simply trying to survive,” Mr Muhammad said.

Divorce, children, and lost futures

At just 18, Meimuna has already experienced a failed marriage, abandonment, and the daily struggle of raising three children. She now lives in her parents’ house in Gidan Goga, following her father to the farm while caring for her children.

“I left the marriage because my husband was hardly around, and it was too hard to fend for my children alone. I couldn’t cope, so I left,” she said.

Her family, consisting of her father, stepmother, and three siblings, survives on meagre farm earnings and now bears the extra burden of feeding Meimuna and her children. With no money for school fees, the children spend their days at home, running around in the neighbourhood with others who share the same fate.

Meimuna’s story is not unusual. Many girls in Zamfara return to their parents’ home after childbearing, abandoned or divorced, carrying both the weight of their own lost childhood and the responsibility of raising children with no stable future.

The damage is more than broken marriages. Most of these girls never completed school. Some never attended at all, first due to poverty, and later because of bandit attacks that shut down many schools in the area.

Even before the insecurity worsened, only about 27 per cent of girls in northern Nigeria completed primary school, according to UNICEF. In Zamfara, the figure is likely even lower. Once married, school is no longer an option for girls. And once divorced and children are involved, education is not even a discussion. Their futures shrink, and their children’s lives follow the same path.

Nigeria has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children, with over 10 million children currently out of the classroom. The Northern zone alone accounts for more than 53 per cent of this figure.

Oluchi Uzodimma, secretary of the National Coalition of Civil Society to End Child Marriage, FCT chapter, who works closely with adolescent mothers across conflict-affected states, said many girls are struggling silently after returning home with children, with no education and little hope.

Ms Uzodimma told PREMIUM TIMES that her team regularly meets girls who were married at 13 or 14, only to be abandoned a few years later.

“In the process, these children lose their self-esteem. They feel inferior. Like they’ve missed life itself. Some people sometimes want to return to school but feel it’s too late. They fear being laughed at or rejected.”

She added that their emotional damage often spirals into isolation, shame, and silence as some girls hide their desires because they believe they won’t be accepted even by their own families.

“We try to remind them that they still have a future. They still have worth. We want to help them believe they can rebuild from where they stopped.”

She also explained that the reasons for early marriage have shifted in many conflict zones. What was once a cultural norm is now driven by survival instincts and trauma.

“Some families give their daughters out because of crises – displacement, hunger, insecurity. Others are abducted and forced into marriage by armed groups. So, this isn’t just tradition. It’s desperation.”

What’s being done and what’s failing

Despite the passage of a Child Protection Law in 2022 and the rollout of intervention programmes by several non-governmental organisations across the state, child marriage remains widespread in Zamfara, fuelled by insecurity, displacement, poverty, and a growing collapse of education in rural communities.

Musa Omar, a child rights advocate and Executive Director of the Voluntary Aid Initiative, said what is often referred to as child marriage in national discourse is termed forced marriage in Zamfara due to cultural and religious sensitivities.

Mr Omar said there is no specific age for marriage in Islamic texts, so the term child marriage is considered controversial. But when a girl is married off without consent, at 12, 13, or 14, it is called forced marriage.

“What began as a cultural norm, particularly among Fulani communities, has now evolved into a survival strategy. Families displaced by bandit attacks, unable to feed their children, are increasingly marrying off their daughters to reduce the burden,” he said.

He said the situation is compounded by a widespread collapse in education and economic opportunity, adding that many girls are pulled out of school permanently, while others never enrolled.

“You have parents with eight or 10 children, no access to income, no farming, no aid. Marriage becomes the easiest option once the girls are seen as no longer contributing to the household,” Mr Omar said.

Zamfara’s Child Protection Law, passed in 2022, includes legal protections and outlines a referral system to support at-risk girls. The state also operates Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs), psychosocial services, and “safe spaces” across its 14 local government areas.

In theory, these structures are meant to prevent or respond to forced marriage, gender-based violence, and child abandonment. But many girls, especially in remote villages, never reach these services or even know they exist.

According to Mr Omar, social stigma, illiteracy, and deep-seated gender norms also continue to undermine efforts at curbing early and forced marriage. He said that through his initiative, he hosts monthly community dialogue sessions, targeting mothers, fathers, religious leaders, and school administrators to spark local conversations about the impact of forced marriage.

“There is isolation, stigmatisation, trauma, and in some cases, rejection by their families. Some turn to drugs or are recruited by criminal groups. Others disappear without a trace after rejection from home.”

He added that a critical weakness in the system is the lack of follow-through and sustained community engagement.

“The law is there. The structures exist. But they are not reaching the people they are meant to protect. Until we fix that, until protection becomes functional, not just formal, forced marriage will continue.”
The paradox of early marriage in Zamfara is stark: what parents embrace as a shield against violence and hardship too often becomes another layer of violence, abandonment, and lost futures.

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PREMIUM TIMES contacted Sulaiman Isa, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs in the state, who acknowledged our findings but directed our reporter to Farida Muhammad, the director of Child Development at the ministry.

When contacted, Ms Muhammed declined the interview request, insisting she was not authorised to speak to the media. She, however, asked that the reporter submit an official letter to the ministry in the state capital, Gusau. The letter was sent, but no response was received as of the time of publication.

This reporting was completed with the support of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).