Child Marriage, a Second Slavery – Olanipekun, Ex-UI Pro-chancellor

The immediate past Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, University of Ibadan, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, has described the move by some senators to legalize child marriage as barbaric and a modern day second slavery,as he also condemned child trafficking in strong terms. Chief Olanipekun who was speaking at the Dorcas Oke Hope Alive Initiative(DOHAL) Public Lecture held at the Faculty of Law Lecture Theatre, University of Ibadan, remarked that those behind the move were not only callous but selfish and wicked. In the lecture entitled “Human Trafficking and Challenges of the African Child”, the former Chairman, UI Council noted that early marriage was part of child trafficking, urging Nigerians to rise against it. The legal icon asked; “where is it written in the holy books that a girl-child should be given out in marriage? A child of 13 years would first see such an event as a child’s play. It is evil, it is a vicious cycle that has been taken too far’’. Chief Olanipekun, therefore, charged well-meaning people to rise against it, pointing out that we must not allow evil to thrive in the country by keeping quiet when we should speak up. The DOHAL Foundation was founded in 2003 in memory of Dorcas, the only daughter of the President, Sword of the Spirit Ministries, Bishop WaleOke, who died as a result of complications arising from typhoid.