A 14-year-old girl is in police custody after poisoning her 35-year-old husband.
Last week, in an arranged marriage, Wasilu Umar was forced to marry Umaru Sani by her father. To celebrate their marriage, Umaru invited a dozen of his friends over. That is when Wasilu decided to slip rat poison into a rice dish.
Umaru died the same day along with friends Nasiru Mohammed and Alhassan Alhassan. Another female victim, Indo Ibrahim, died at the hospital while receiving treatment.
Wasilu is cooperating with the police, and will likely be charged for culpable homicide. She admitted that she purchased the poison from a local market with the intent of killing her husband.
‘The suspect confessed to committing the crime and said she did it because she was forced to marry a man she did not love,” said assistant superintendent Musa Magaji Majia.
Child marriage is still very common throughout Nigeria, especially in the North, where there is a large, poor, Muslim population. This is especially true in times of drought, numbers increase in times of drought because a bride price is paid and it means one less mouth to feed.
According to the U.N. children’s agency, Fifty percent of Nigerian girls living in rural areas are married before they turn 18, according to the U.N. children’s agency. Child brides suffer difficult pregnancies and can often die in childbirth, the leading cause of death worldwide for girls aged 15 to 19.
They are also much more likely to contract AIDS and be subjected to domestic violence, according to the International Center for Research on Women.
The Nigerian government is attempting to curtail child marriages. According to the BBC, Islamic police are trying to stop parents from forcing children into marriages against their will and the father could be charged as well.
