Mother nature rejoiced at her birth,
Another creator has been born,
A life giver,
A natural lover,
A beautiful mother,
A tender nurturer,
She is a girl child.
She aims to soar,
She aims to fly,
Like an albatross.
Even more,
Like an eagle so high,
She is a girl child
Mother nature welcomed her with open arms
But society has clipped her wings,
Caused her to crawl when she ought to fly,
Cursed her with pains when she tries to reign
Held her bound with early marriage
Future condemned, destiny buried
She is a girl child
With pains, she bore
Her life lost along the path,
Education thrown away,
Generations condemned without a chance
Tell me, who raised the bandits that wrecks havoc on the highway
Or the kidnapper who steals life without a shred of humanity,
Allow me tell you the answer,
A mother who knows nothing about her responsibility to the society
The first time I saw a child bride,
I was 18,
She hopped down the street completely covered from head to toe barely aged 9,
No she did not reside in a rural area, she lived in mararaba, a fast growing town in the boundary of Nasarawa
If you ever thought child marriage was a northern situation,
Travel down to the south and see young girls of 13 with protruding bellies,
Married to one baba who is old enough to be her great grand father or one young man with no vision except to catch them young
This is the story of the girl child
But we have seen time and time again that the girl child is limitless,
Her dreams are wild and her imaginations are valid,
She sees beyond the ordinary, she sees realities
And her spirit when set free an given liberty can transform a nation.
Happy International Day of the Girl Child
Poetry by @ti_writes
