Thirty years ago, pastor Richards Akonam invited an 11-year-old girl, Esther, to join him for morning prayer in a village he visited in southeastern Nigeria. One of the participants warned him, “She’s somebody’s wife.” Akonam, learning Esther was married to an 86-year-old man who was opposed to Christianity, recalled villagers telling him “not to even ask questions.”
But he did ask questions at his church in the south Nigerian state of Cross River. Over the years, he encountered other victims, such as Grace, whose father sold her to a 36-year-old man for 30,000 naira (around $220 USD then) when she was 3.
“He sold her to settle his debts,” Akonam said.
The practice of “money marriage” is an ancient custom among Becheve communities in Obanliku, Cross River. According to Akonam, tax evaders used to pledge their young girls, including the unborn, to avoid jail. The victims are called “money women” or “money wives.” Relatives sell them for as low as 18,000 naira ($12 USD)—often paid in installments or through gifts like bottles of Coca-Cola or wine.
Despite efforts to stop child marriages in Nigeria, around 1 in 6 girls are married before the age of 15. In 2024 UNICEF estimated that the country had over 24 million child brides—the third highest of any country.
While the 2003 federal Child Rights Act prohibits marriage of anyone below 18 years old, child marriages persist, even for those under 15 persist. “The law is not being enforced,” Izuchukwu Nwagbara, a lawyer based in Lagos, Nigeria, told CT. “The Nigerian police is not an efficient law enforcement agency that would enforce the child’s rights law of the different states.”
A subsection of Nigeria’s Constitution addressing citizenship also provides a loophole for child marriage, saying any woman “who is married shall be deemed to be of full age.”
According to Nwagbara, many communities define childhood as ending before age 18 so do not have cultural inhibitions against much earlier marriages. “The only reprieve we have is that long years of education have more or less banished the thought of child marriage,” he said. National prevalence of child marriages has dropped from 44 percent to 30 percent.
The economic crisis in Nigeria also worsened the situation. In 2022, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics reported 40 percent of Nigeria’s 216 million population was living below the poverty line. The husband of a “money wife” wields control over the family indebted to him—if she dies childless, her family must provide another. “This replacement money-wife system puts other children at risk,” Akonam said.
This system also contributes to a form of sex trafficking. Akonam explained that the system acts as an “insurance policy” for older men who make an income from their young wives sleeping with other men in exchange for money or gifts: “Whatever [payment] she gets, she brings back. Even if she gets pregnant, it is part of the game.”
Save the Children International estimates over 22,000 girls die yearly from pregnancy and childbirth linked to child marriage. Nearly half these deaths occur in West and Central Africa. According to one study, “money marriage” increases risks of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse of the girls.
“[Some of the husbands] have the idea that if your wife misbehaves, you can flog her,” said Ignatius Ubetu, a pastor in the northern Kano State who struggles to convince families to see girls’ worth. He lamented that some parents believe girls consume resources, bringing no value to their families until they are married off.
Ubetu pushes back on this belief through Oak Prestigious School, founded in 2015, which teaches holistic development to 200 students, mostly girls. “I want them to know that the girls are as valuable as the boys,” Ubetu told CT.
Mistreatment of child brides has amplified calls for legal and cultural reforms. But some leaders are resisting change to the status quo.
In May 2024, Abdulmalik Sarkin Daji, speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, revealed plans for a mass wedding ceremony of 100 girls in Niger State. He claimed the girls and young women were orphans who had lost their parents to deadly kidnapping gangs in northern Nigeria, and he committed to providing their bride prices. Critics worried some girls might be underaged or forced to participate for financial reasons. An online petition demanding an end to the proposed marriages gathered over 15,000 signatures.
Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, then Nigeria’s women affairs minister, filed a court order to stop the mass wedding, saying it violated the Child Rights Act. Niger State Imams’ Forum—an association of Islamic clerics—threatened legal action against Kennedy-Ohanenye, who then backed down, saying, “I did not intend to stop the marriage but to ensure the girls are of marriageable age and were not being forced into it.”
“The former minister could not save the girls,” Lois Auta, a legislative advocate in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, told CT. “I think you’re just wasting your time trying to stop a practice which they don’t see as an evil.”
But Akonam, now 55, sees stopping child marriage as a calling: “I couldn’t turn my back on them.”
Soon after encountering child bride Esther, Akonam started fighting against the practice, first by creating awareness through church discipleship. To his surprise, he met challenges even there. Some women opposed him, and men left the church in droves. His community outreaches were more dangerous. He escaped lynching several times, once fleeing a mob of around 45 people, mostly men, after helping Grace escape when she was 13. In 2013, he founded RichGrace Foundation with his wife to rescue girls fleeing these often-abusive marriages.
Since then, RichGrace Foundation has helped more than 200 girls leave abusive early marriages and get an education. Sometimes, the foundation pays back the debts owed to the girls’ “husbands.” Others just escape. He told me Grace is in her second year in university.
