A girl who learns is a girl who is not a bride. Today the world is asked to end child marriage and invest in girls’ rights. I join that call wearing three hats: as a member of the advisory council behind Columbia University’s report Accelerating Efforts to End Child Marriage; as Civil Society Representative on the Steering Committee of the African Union’s Decade of Accelerated Action for the Transformation of Education and Skills Development in Africa (2025–2034); and as the leader of Human Capital Africa, an organisation that has spent years arguing that Africa’s human capital crisis begins in the early-grade classroom.
In Nigeria, 23.6 million women and girls were married before 18, the largest number in West and Central Africa. In parts of the North the situation is a national emergency: 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 Center 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 warns 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.
Progress is possible. An estimated 68 million child marriages have been averted over the past 25 years, through girls’ education, legal reform and social protection. The evidence on what works is strong:
Where HCA’s mission and this campaign meet. A girl cannot stay in secondary school if she never learned to read. Today, 89 per cent of children in sub-Saharan Africa are in learning poverty, unable to read and understand a simple text by age ten. A girl who cannot read by ten falls behind, then drops out.
Once she is out of school, she is at the greatest risk of marriage. That is why we say schooling is not learning. Foundational literacy and numeracy are the first and cheapest protection a girl has.
At the Columbia launch I said that community programmes and advocacy are not enough on their own. Governments must lead. On this Day of the Girl, Human Capital Africa calls on African governments to:
The Columbia report sets a realistic target: cutting child marriage prevalence from one in five to one in seven within five years. Africa can lead the way to that target, but only if we treat every girl’s classroom as the place where her childhood is protected.
Any girl-child should be a student, not a bride. She should learn, then lead.
