GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT
The study sought to assess the level of practices and implications of child marriage globally
as perceived by Akwa Ibom people. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the
study. The study was conducted in Akwa Ibom State. The population of the study comprised
all social scientists in Akwa Ibom State. Stratified random sampling technique was used to
select 180 social scientists, which constituted the sample size used for the study. The
instrument titled “Global Practices of Child Marriage Questionnaire (GPCMQ)” was used
for data collection. Face validation of the instrument was carried out to ensure that the
instrument had accuracy, appropriateness and completeness. Cronbach Alpha technique was
used to determine the level of the reliability of the instrument. In this case, the reliability
coefficient obtained was 0.91 and this was high enough to justify the use of the instrument.
The researcher subjected the data generated for this study to appropriate statistical
techniques such as descriptive statistics used in answering research questions and simple
regression in testing the hypothesis. The test for significance was done at 0.05 alpha level.
The study concluded that Child marriage has existed for centuries as caused by high rate of
Poverty, traditional beliefs and norms and many more. The study also revealed the
implications of child marriage to include a higher risk of pregnancy-related injuries such as
fistula faced by girls under 18, discontinuity in education by child brides among others.
Finally, strategies that need to be implemented to mitigate child marriage were numerus
including organization of public vigils to end child marriage, use of religious media, such as
radio and television, to disseminate the message that child marriage is a violation of human
rights and it needs to end and many more. One of the recommendation made was that NGOs
should continue providing information via media and outreach to parents and young people
in communities where early marriage appears to be prevalent as television may be effective
for communicating information about rights to women and girls who are isolated.
KEYWORDS: Child marriage, Implications, Global practices, Mitigation Strategies.