“We should encourage boarding for girls’ schools because of the attitude of our parents here in the North. The moment a girl is about 13 to 15 years old, we tend to marry her out,” the governor said.
Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Kastina State has converted all girls' secondary schools in the rural communities to boarding institutions, in the bid to address girl-child marriages.
Masari made this known while speaking with journalists at the Government House, during a visit by officials of the North-West zone of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) over the weekend.
“We should encourage boarding for girls’ schools because of the attitude of our parents here in the North. The moment a girl is about 13 to 15 years old, we tend to marry her out,” he said.
Explaining that the move was to discourage parents from marrying off their girls at a very tender age, Masari disclosed that the state government gives an incentive of N20,000 monthly to every mother who sends her girl-child to the boarding schools.
“With N20,000 she can afford to do small business in her room, to discourage her from marrying off her daughter at the age of 13 or 14, or sending her to hawk on the streets. It is through hawking that the girls fall into wrong hands,” he stated.