The Federal Government has set 2030 as the deadline to end child marriage in Nigeria, with a new five-year strategy that will cost an estimated N140.8 billion to implement.
The plan was unveiled at the launch of the National Strategy and Costed Action Plan on Ending Child Marriage in Nigeria (2025-2030), organized by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development in collaboration with the Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and UNICEF in Kano.
Speaking at the event, the Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, said the strategy goes beyond statements of intent. According to her, it is meant to turn government’s promise to protect the girl child into funded actions, clear responsibilities and results that can be measured.
She explained that the success of the plan will not be judged by launch ceremonies but by what changes on the ground - whether more girls stay in school, whether communities abandon harmful traditional practices, and whether the number of girls married before 18 actually drops.
The minister called on both federal and state governments to mainstream the strategy into their policies, annual budgets and programmes, noting that ending child marriage cannot be left to one ministry alone. She said education, health, social protection and child protection institutions must work together if the plan is to work.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim listed poverty, insecurity, girls dropping out of school, gender discrimination and deep-rooted traditional norms as some of the major drivers of child marriage in the country. She added that weak enforcement of child protection laws and poor access to education and welfare services have also left many girls vulnerable.
She stressed the need to enforce existing laws protecting children and to expand access to quality education and social support for girls at risk.
The minister also commended the Kano State Government for steps already taken to keep girls in school, including its scholarship schemes, free bus transportation for schoolgirls and the adoption of re-entry guidelines that allow married adolescent girls to return to school.
Giving details of the financial plan, the Director of Economic Services in the Ministry, Musa Aliyu Musa, said implementing the strategy over the next five years will require N140.802 billion. Under the arrangement, the Federal Government is expected to provide 60 per cent of the amount, while development partners and other stakeholders will cover the remaining 40 per cent.
Musa noted that the previous national strategy launched in 2014 did not have a costed action plan, which made it difficult to implement and track. He said the new framework is different because it clearly spells out how much is needed, who is responsible for what, and how progress will be monitored.
In his remarks, the Chief of UNICEF Field Office in Kano, Mr Shafeeq Ur-Rehman, painted a stark picture of the situation with data from the 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. According to him, 33.4 per cent of young women in Nigeria were married before age 18.
The figures, he said, are even higher in parts of the North. Bauchi recorded 74 per cent, Jigawa 72 per cent, Katsina 69 per cent and Kano 39 per cent. He urged state governments to go beyond endorsing the strategy and commit real funding to protection services and programmes that keep girls in school and safe.
On her part, the Kano State Commissioner for Women Affairs, Children and Persons with Special Needs, Hajiya Amina Abdullahi, reaffirmed the state’s commitment to protecting the girl child. She cited ongoing interventions such as the AGILE Project, the Girl Child Initiative and the state’s free and compulsory education policy as evidence of that commitment.
For many advocates at the event, the costed plan is a step forward from years of policy without funding. But the real test, they agreed, will be whether federal and state governments, development partners and communities can mobilize the N140.8 billion and ensure it reaches the girls who need it most before 2030.
