Bride-child sold for 20 euros to an old man

That's how Dorothy's confession, a bride-child. In her village, in southeastern Nigeria, girls are sold as brides for money. Families force girls over 4 or 5 years of age to marry much older men. They call them <x0 minusus for para” and marriage serves to pay a debt. In other cases, minors are sold for small sums of money, such as animals.

One day my aunt came to see me, promising to take me away from that man. It was not true, for when I fled, I was caught and handed back to him. The next day some women came to the village to punish me. When I tried to get up, I saw Philips, the old man who wanted to be my husband. At that moment my wives kept me and laid me down. That's where he raped me”, says Dorothy.

She adds that a few weeks later she began to feel mixed, and shortly thereafter she discovered that she was pregnant. Next she had five children with her who are malnourished, and the wife must care alone because her husband is very old.

Young girls are sold for minimum 10,000 Nigerian naira, or about 20 euros. The prize may include goats or pigs given along with them, writes loa.al.

Families who sell them are warned not to flee for any reason from their husbands.

In money marriages, such as the Becheve tribe, minors belong to men who buy them. In the meantime, if the man dies, the minor “inherits” from his relatives. But tradition is even more cruel than that! If the bride-child dies without bringing a child to life, parents are asked another girl to replace.

Richard Aconam is a Christian missionary engaged in saving the brides-children, where together with other volunteers of Faith House Missions, there are dozens of them.