Photos: Girl Runs Away From Husband’s House To Project Alert After Being Married Off At 16

Just a few days after celebrating #DayOfTheGirl , a day set
aside to celebrate the girl child, Hadiza’s 
story hit us   “like a thunderbolt.  Hear her;

“When I was sixteen  
years old, my father married me off to an old man,” she explains, the memories
of her harrowing experience still raw.

“I want to go to school; I want to study Accountancy
but my husband refused instead, he  was
maltreating me. I could not take it longer, that is why I ran away from  his house ” Continue…

Hadiza’s story as narrated by Josephine  Effah-Chukwuma, the founder and Executive
director of Project Alert( A Lagos based NGO)

My daughter Hadiza and I. When I founded Project Alert on
Violence Against Women 16 years ago, I didn’t know God will bless me with so
many daughters. Daughters that society using culture and manipulating religion
etc would want to stifle their destinies. I am indeed blessed with beautiful
and brilliant daughters destined for greatness. Hadiza is one of them. A
brilliant young girl who wants to study Accountancy. Forced into an early
marriage last year which she reluctantly went into to please her parents, she
ran to Project Alert two weeks ago when she couldn’t take it any longer as the
man was even maltreating her.

We called her family in and after series of discussions with
her father who at the end of the day saw reason; and the man whom we
threatened with legal actions for battering and assault, he agreed to divorce
her. This he did immediately and you ought to see the smile on my daughter’s
face. I took Hadiza back home on Friday last week to a grateful father, happy
mother; and joyous siblings.

Hadiza will marry no doubt but she will marry someone who
will respect and not maltreat her. For now her father has promised to enrol her
for lessons to take JAMB next year. This is a Minister of Finance or an
Accountant General in the making”