A former Minister of Education and the Founder, Human Capital Africa, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has called on stakeholders to invest in the girl child’s education, saying it is the only way to stop child marriage and empower the girl child.
In a statement on the International Day of the Girl Child, Ezekwesili said UNICEF’s 2026 estimates show that about one in five girls worldwide is married before 18, saying that the development adds up to “roughly 650 million women and girls alive today who were married as children.”
She said more than 12 million girls are still married each year, and sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence at 31 per cent.
According to her, “In Nigeria, 23.6 million women and girls were married before 18, the largest number in West and Central Africa.”
She lamented that in parts of the North the situation is a national emergency: as in “Jigawa, 78 per cent of women aged 20–49 were first married before 18, and 63 per cent of women left school to marry.
“The cost of inaction is high. Our Columbia report includes new analysis by the Centre for Global Development. It estimates losses of up to $175 billion a year, or almost $2.5 trillion by 2040, from lost productivity and higher health risks caused by child marriage.
“The report also warned that aid cuts, weakening global commitment to women’s rights, and rising conflict could slow or reverse progress. Child marriage is not a side issue in development. It drains a nation’s human capital directly.”
Ezekwesili, however, said progress is possible as an estimated 68 million child marriages have been averted over the past 25 years, through girls’ education, legal reform and social protection.
She said each year of secondary education lowers a girl’s chance of marrying before 18 by five percentage points or more, and in Niger, when the government removed the direct costs of middle school for rural girls, each additional year in secondary school was associated with a 19 percentage point lower probability of marriage.
She added that if every African girl completed secondary education, child marriage could be almost eliminated.
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