The Clerk of the Voice of the Girls Parliament of the Helpline Social Support Initiative, Onome Treasure Uko, has called for quality and accessible education, scholarships, safe routes to school, improved teaching, vocational opportunities and support for vulnerable families to help girls thrive.
Uko spoke at a Voice of Change Parliament session during the Technical Inception Workshop of the Future Free from Child Marriage (FFCM) Project, where she said child marriage should no longer be excused as culture when it violates girls’ rights and restricts their choices.
“I’m here to tell you that it’s not by force. You can do what you want to do. You can become a professor, you can become an astronaut, you can become a housewife, if that’s what you want. The point is that you have a choice,” she said.
Uko said the objective should be to expand girls’ choices and make those choices realistic.
“We want a safe space where girls are provided with opportunities, economic resources, education, supportive families and facilities, where saying no is a realistic choice,” she said.
She called for sustainable interventions that would produce lasting change rather than temporary results.
“What we want is a lasting effect, not just something that is sharp for one moment and then cools out the moment that you are gone from there,” she said.
The Country Director, CARE Nigeria, Dr Hussaini Abdu, said the project provided an opportunity to deepen collaboration and translate expertise into action.
“Our commitment is to see whatever we can do to tackle this challenge. We recognise that we are not the only organisation out there. There are several of us doing ample work around what is an important value that we want to add to this,” he said.
Abdu urged participants to contribute insights that would strengthen the implementation of the project and support effective delivery.
A representative of the Coalition to End Child Marriage, Olatosimi Kolawole, said interventions must reflect local realities and address the drivers of child marriage across different regions.
“Put a girl in school, let her stay till SS3, and you have reduced by about 70 per cent the incidence of child marriage, using education to address the issue,” he said.
Kolawole said empowerment should extend beyond formal education to include life skills, vocational training and literacy in local languages. He also urged partners to align their interventions with existing government frameworks.
“We can complement, we can advise, but government will always be government, whether state, local or federal,” he said.
He advocated community-led bylaws and warned against relying on single interventions, calling instead for a combination of education, legal protection, awareness and economic support.
Kolawole also urged stakeholders to use the National Strategy on the Elimination of Child Marriage 2025–2030 as a common framework for interventions.
The stakeholders advocated locally driven and legally grounded measures, stressing girls’ agency, education, community ownership and effective policy implementation.
The deliberations reinforced the message that ending child marriage requires more than preventing early unions. It requires systems that keep girls in school, communities that own solutions, laws that protect rights and government action that translates policy commitments into measurable opportunities for girls to choose their futures.
The workshop was organised by CARE Nigeria, CARE USA and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), in collaboration with the Nigerian Government, and brought together government representatives, civil society organisations, young people and advocates.
