Cotonou/Benin — A group of young girls aged between 15 and 17 sit tight, following attentively a lesson being taught by a Mualim in a makeshift madrassah located in one of the impoverished townships of Benin's economic capital, Cotonou. They arrived in Benin recently, fleeing poverty, hunger, climate change, and rising insecurity in their home country, Niger, in the aftermath of the military coup that toppled democratically-elected president Mohamed Bazoum.
Child marriage is most prevalent in Maradi , Zinder , Diffa and Tahoua . Girls as young as 10 years old in some regions are married, and after the age of 25, only a handful of young women are unmarried, according to the Girls Not Brides statistics.However, Abdou says there has been a steady increase in such cases since the military coup due to the social and economic meltdown triggered by regional and international sanctions, which left Niger's economy hanging in balance.
Asked if he was aware that he was committing a crime by acting as an accomplice to child marriages, he became defensive and politicized the issue:"What's criminal and illegal in that procedure? How can you describe our good gesture to help these poverty-stricken girls rebuild their lives as a crime? Aminata describes the hell she went through while working for one of these families."They make you work like a slave, right from Fajr up to Isha and even beyond. It's very stressful. Most of the time, you don't even eat well. They keep yelling at you whenever you make a slight mistake. Anwar is a good man and a caring husband," she says through a translator.
She claims the girls arrive in the"workplace" every evening well covered from head to toe but take it off and put on some sexy clothes, only to wear them again after the end of the shift."Now, who fears God the most? The hypocrites or the people like us who have nothing to hide?"