Child Marriage Policy in Nigeria: A Policy InnovationModel 1

Ene IkpebeDepartment of Public Administration and Policy

American Universityei3567a@american.edu

June 3, 2019

1I am grateful to Professors Carla Flink, Bradley Hardy, Laura Langbein, and Daniel Puskin inthe Department of Public Administration & Policy, American University School of Public Affairsfor their helpful comments and suggestions.

Abstract

This paper uses policy innovation theory to explain the adoption patterns of the Child RightsAct (CRA) in Nigeria. Despite several international treaties to address the problem of earlyand forced marriage, it remains the unfortunate reality of many Nigerian girls. In 2003, theCRA was passed at the federal level to combat this issue. Among other provisions, the policystipulated 18 as the minimum age for marriage, but as of 2019, only 24 out of Nigeria’s 36states have adopted the policy. Using data from several sources including the National Bu-reau of Statistics and Demographic and Health survey, I test hypotheses relating the speedof policy adoption to female state legislative presence, state level female education, age atmarriage and child birth activity, and the influence of religious law. Results show that thestrongest determinant of late adoption is state adherence to Islamic religious law, and that aculture of early marriage is associated with slower adoption. The results also show evidenceof policy diffusion among states and that states with a higher level of female representationin their legislatures are faster CRA adopters.

KEY WORDS • Policy Innovation • Policy Diffusion • Child Rights Act • Child Marriage• Nigeria

Introduction

According to the 2017 UNICEF State of the World’s Children report, 44 percent of Nige-

rian girls were married before age 18, and 18.2 percent were married before age 15.1 This

translates to the 11th highest incidence of child marriage in the world. 2 In 2003, the federal

government passed the Child Rights Act (hereafter referred to as CRA) which stipulated

18 as the minimum age of marriage. Unfortunately, 15 years later in 2018, only 24 out of

Nigeria’s 36 states have domesticated the policy.3 The purpose of this study is to develop

an innovation model to explain the variation in adoption speed among the states.

This paper aims to fill a gap in the policy innovation literature. So far, the proliferation

in research in this area has largely neglected the unique political, economic, and religious

contexts found in many developing countries. At the end of their book chapter on policy

innovation in Theories of the Policy Process Sabatier and Weible (2014), Berry and Berry

(2014) provide a list of further reading on the topic and 74% is on innovation and diffusion

in the United States. To offer broader application of the theory, my study is about the

adoption of a less-studied policy in a less-studied context. And the novelty is rewarding.

My results suggest, for instance, that a ’problem environment’ and policy action are not

always positively associated. I also find that religious law is a major determinant of policy

innovation, an idea that has hitherto been left unexplored in the innovation literature.

The results of my analysis may also contribute to ongoing policy discussions on child

marriage in a new way. Stark state-by-state or regional differences are common in Nige-

ria, especially on social and political issues. In alignment with this, the incidence of child

marriage in Nigeria varies widely across the country, with figures ranging from 76 percent

11UNICEF 2017 State of the Worlds Children https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/

child-marriage2Girls Not Brides https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/where-does-it-happen/3Educational Resource Providers https://www.educationalresourceproviders.com/introduction

-to-the-childs-rights-act-2003

1

in the northwest to 10 percent in the southeast.4 Such disparities in children’s lives across

the country, with particularly high rates in the northern region make my research questions

timely. Where political rhetoric and public opinion have often only pointed to the country’s

multi-ethnicity and multi-religiosity as the source of division on similar matters, I provide an

analysis of government action that could both enrich discussions among policymakers and

provide specific targets of policy action to universalize the rights of young girls.

In addition to taking an analytic approach to the subject of child marriage policy, this

study is important because, while I acknowledge and explore the role of religion (mainly

Islam) in explaining the action or non-action of states, I take the discussion further by

considering ways in which the education and family life of women in the states translates

to state policy. One might argue that these are mechanisms through which religious beliefs

ultimately determine state policies or in this case, refusal to implement federal policy. As a

counter-argument, I present the non-uniformity in the actions of majority Christian states.

There were adopters as early as 2 years after the federal policy (Plateau in 2005) and as late

as 13 years after (Enugu in 2016). My analysis seeks to understand this variation and in

doing so, highlight feasible areas for policy action.

The rest of the paper is as follows: section II briefly summarizes the evolution of child

rights laws in Nigeria, section III details the policy innovation theory and the hypotheses to

be tested, section IV discusses the data and methods used, section V reports and discusses

the results, and section VI is a short conclusion.

History of Child Rights Laws in Nigeria

In 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the

Child (CRC),5 the first document to fully integrate international human rights. Only a year

4U.S. Department of State https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/277277.pdf55Convention on the Rights of the Child https://www.unicef.org/crc/index30177.html

2

after, Nigeria signed and ratified the treaty. A decade later, Nigeria also signed and ratified

the African Union Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (CRCW).6 Both treaties

were Nigeria’s first commitments to the international society to protect her children from

harm and avail them basic opportunities for education and healthcare.

Between the ratification of the CRC and CRCW, the first domestic bill on children’s

rights was passed in 1993, but it received much opposition from fundamentalist religious

groups. Both Christians and Muslims expressed concern that some of the provisions were

contrary to their beliefs Toyo (2006). The ability to sue one’s parents or guardians and the

minimum age for marriage were two notable subjects of contention.7 It would seem that

these oppositions were enough to put the issue of children’s rights on hold because it did not

receive any more significant attention until 2003.

In 2003, the National Assembly passed the CRA. It is important to note that the policy

was about much more than just child marriage. For instance, it explicitly equated the rights

of the Nigerian child to all the human rights stated in the constitution (section 3), provided

rules and regulations concerning foster care (100-106), adoption (137-148), justice procedures

etc. Section 21 declared anyone under the age of 18 years incapable of contracting a valid

marriage. Thus, any future marriages contracted under such circumstances were nullified.

Betrothals were also made illegal, with punishment in prison time for both the parents and

the one to whom a betrothal was made. Breaking the law could now attract a prison sentence

of up to five years or a 500,000 naira fine (approximately $1,400).

This policy revived discussions on the supposed attack of its provisions on some re-

ligious beliefs and cultural norms. In fact, during a meeting of the Supreme Council for

Sharia8 in Nigeria (SCSN), an unnamed leader is reported to have said:

62007 UNICEF Fact Sheet on Child Rights In Nigeria: https://www.unicef.org/wcaro/

WCARONigeriaFactsheetsCRA.pdf7Our culture, Hindrance to Child Rights Act https://vanguardarticle8Sharia is the Islamic legal system

3

SCSN has observed that this law (CRA 2003), if allowed to be passed by our

state assemblies, will demolish the very basis and essence of the Sharia and our

Islamic culture, and accordingly calls on all Muslims and Islamic organizations

to take appropriate steps in their states to prevent this from happening9

As of 2018, all the non-adopters are states that have previously chosen to operate

under Sharia in conjunction with federal law. Figures 1 and 2 below show the adopters as of

2007 and 2011. Evidently, there is a delay concentrated in the northern region of the country

where all the sharia states are.

Figure 1: CRA Adoption as of 2007

9cited in Toyo (2006)9Jigawa domesticated the CRA in 2006, but defines children as anyone who has not reached puberty. By

that definition, child marriage is still allowed there, and so I do not count the state as an adopter of a childmarriage prohibition

4

Figure 2: CRA Adoption as of 2011

The Nigerian Constitution confers on the Sharia Court of Law the power to decide on

the validity of a marriage. On the exclusive legislative list, it includes “the formation, annul-

ment and dissolution of marriages other than marriages under Islamic law and Customary

law including matrimonial cases relating thereto. And although it states 18 as the age for the

start of voting, naturalization, and renunciation of citizenship, it fails to state a minimum

age for marriage. In fact, in several subsections, it explicitly states that “any woman who is

married shall be deemed to be of full age.10 This certainly implies an otherness of marriages

under Islamic law and therefore leaves room for non-compliance to the minimum marriage

age stated in the CRA.

One of the most well-known instances of this was in 2010 when Senator Ahmed Sani

Yerima was accused of marrying a 13-year-old girl. In the BBC interview that followed, he

denied it while refusing to disclose the age of his newest wife. He also repeatedly emphasized

his commitment to Islamic law over any contradicting law.11 This event was particularly

10The Nigerian Constitution can be read here:http://www.nigeria-law.org/ConstitutionOfTheFederalRepublicOfNigeria.htm

11Nigerian senator Sani denies marrying girl of 13. April 30th, 2010 bbc

5

noteworthy because it was not the first time that he had been in the news over marriage

to an underage girl; he married a 15-year-old in 2006. The involvement of a Senator in

two highly publicized cases exemplifies the impact of the aforementioned omission in the

Constitution. It also supports the general idea that religious law might be a primary driver

for policy decisions regarding the CRA. This argument is not illogical. However, as already

mentioned, the intention of this study is to consider other predictors of state action.

To summarize, Nigeria has historically taken steps to legally protect children from early

and forced marriage, but those few attempts have been continuously attacked on the basis of

religion. The Constitution recognizes three distinct traditions of law: the English common

law, Sharia (Islamic religious law) and Customary law (based on communal traditions), and

the coexistence of three distinct law traditions helps to create a conducive environment for

the non-action of states concerning the policy.

Policy Innovation

Walker (1969) defines innovation as any government program that is new to the jurisdiction

that is adopting it, even if it has existed and been in implementation elsewhere. The literature

distinguishes between general innovativeness which can be measured across policy areas and

topic-specific innovativeness (Berry and Berry, 2014 in Sabatier and Weible (2014)). For a

single policy study like this, they insist that the focus of the research should be the likelihood

of adoption. Unfortunately, there is such a close relationship between the religious features

of the states and their adoption decisions that a logistic regression model (which would be

the appropriate one) cannot be estimated. As a result, I am focusing only on the speed of

adoption.

Next, I describe the role of internal determinants and diffusion in policy adoption which

together, determine government decision (Berry and Berry in Sabatier and Weible (2014)).

6

Internal Determinants

Internal determinants are all the political, economic, or social characteristics of a government

jurisdiction that might drive policy change.

Socioeconomic Factors

Carter and LaPlant (1997), argue that policy adoption takes place among American states

as a product of a ‘problem environment.’ They define the problem environment as any

serious occurrence in a policy area that is capable of producing innovation. Translated to

my study, the problem environment may comprise public health problems resulting from child

marriage. On one hand, this could mean that I should expect states with worse conditions

for women in terms of health services, mortality among young mothers, or domestic violence

involving young mothers to act more urgently on the domestication of the CRA. However, it

is arguably the case that states for which these conditions apply are precisely the ones that

do not move to adopt the CRA. I attempt to capture the problem environment with the

median age at marriage, median age at first birth, and median years of education, the idea

being that states where marriage and childbirth is delayed and where women attain more

education are expected to be faster adopters of the policy.

Hypothesis 1 The higher the median age of marriage in a state, the higher its speed of

adoption

Hypothesis 2 The higher the female education in a state, the higher the speed of adoption

Hypothesis 3 The higher the median age at first birth, the higher its speed of adoption

7

Political Factors

In addition to differences in education level and the observable focus on marriage and child-

birth among the general population of a state, I also expect the gender make-up of the

legislative body to be a crucial factor in this discussion. Child marriage is almost exclusively

a female problem in Nigeria, so I expect that its presence on the political agenda would be

tied to stronger female presence and that it would come primarily as a result of women’s

actions. It is important to note, however, that the empirical evidence is mixed concerning

the influence of women on policy attitudes and outcomes. At the local government level,

Schumaker and Burns (1988) found that female politicians paid more attention to women’s

issues than males. Similarly, Poggione (2004) finds a signficant gender difference in welfare

policy. Given that this is a policy area that has been shown to matter to women (Diamond

(1977) & Leader (1977) cited in Poggione (2004)), we might expect child marriage policy to

be similarly mostly heralded by women legislators. As such, I hypothesize that states with

more female legislators are earlier adopters of the CRA.

Hypothesis 4 The higher the female representation in a state’s legislature, the higher its

speed of adoption

Religious Factors

One of the main purposes of this research is to add to the extensive work on the role of

economic, political, and social factors (Carter and LaPlant (1997);Pacheco (2012)) in the

policy process. This paper showcases the power of law, specifically religious law, to impact

policy decisions. As previously discussed, the evolution of the CRA legislation has been

marked by opposition from the main religious groups in Nigeria. Therefore, I expect religion

to be a strong determinant of policy innovation regarding child marriage. I test the impact

of Sharia law specifically for two reasons. First, having observed the adoption years of all

8

thirty-six states, majority Muslim states are the non-adopters. Second, the choice of this

variable highlights the role of the law of the land, specifically, in those states rather than the

mere presence of Muslims.

Hypothesis 5 States that operate under sharia law have a lower speed of adopting the CRA

Diffusion

Apart from internal determinants, governments also make policy decisions based on what is

being transmitted directly from other governments, that is they influence each other. Ac-

cording to Berry and Berry (1990), there are five mechanisms for this phenomenon: learning,

imitation, normative pressure, competition, and coercion. Regarding minimum marriage age

laws, Nigeria’s federal structure limits the coercion of states and aims to protect their au-

tonomy. Short of budgetary and tax incentives Mason (2011), the federal government must

let state legislatures decide on the importance of any policy to their jurisdiction. Diffusion

is therefore more likely to take place via learning, imitation and normative pressure.

Crain argues that cities typically adopt a policy when nearby cities have done the same

Crain (1966). Based on the policy area, the reasons for following regional precedence vary.

States would arguably not adopt the CRA as a way of competing with their neighbors; it is

not an economic policy. But there is an argument for normative pressure, a desire to improve

the image of political leaders, and to secure reelections. I might also expect policymakers to

adopt policies that have been implemented in neighboring states in order to gain legitimacy

and demonstrate an alliance with developed norms and values Weyland (2005). I therefore

hypothesize that states are influenced to adopt CRA by their neighbors.

Hypothesis 6 States are faster to adopt the CRA when they have neighbors adopt it in the

previous or same year

9

In conclusion, the adapted equation from Berry and Berry (2014) to summarize policy

innovation is as follows:

(SpeedofAdoption)it = f(Motivationit, ResourcesorObstacles, Otherpoliciesit, Externalit)

Where the unit of analysis is a jurisdiction i which may adopt a policy in year t

motivation refers to the personal and political agendas of state officials

resources or obstacles are the economic factors that may enable or prevent policy

adoption

other policies are pre-existing legislation that also either enable or prevent new policies

external refers to diffusion pressures from other governments

Research Design

Data

The data for this analysis were collected from several different sources. I obtained the

median years of education and age at first marriage and birth for each of the 36 states from

the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS)IPUMS-DHS (2016).The DHS is a large survey

conducted every 5 years, and I used the 2003 survey because I am trying to model the

behavior of states based on their characteristics in the year during which the policy became

available at the federal level. The idea, as already discussed in the previous section, is that

these characteristics explain the speed of policy adoption. The 2003 gender distribution of

state legislatures came from the National Bureau of Statistics NBS (2016). Lastly, states

under sharia were identified in Elaigwu and Galadima (2003).

10

Dependent Variable

The year of adoption for each state was gathered from news articles and state government

websites. Information about each of these is in Appendix Table 1. I converted the year

of adoption to an innovation score in line with Carter and LaPlant (1997) for use as my

dependent variable. Plateau state was the first adopter and received a score of 0.87 according

to the formula below. There are twelve states that are yet to adopt the policy and so have

a score of 0. Table 1 shows the year of adoption and their innovation scores.

innovationscore =2018 − adoptionyear

2018 − 2003. (1)

11

Table 1: Dependent Variable

State Year of Adoption Innovation Score12

ABIA 2006 0.8ADAMAWA 2018 0.00AKWA IBOM 2008 0.67ANAMBRA 2008 0.80BAUCHI 2018 0.00BAYELSA 2015 0.13BENUE 2008 0.67BORNO 2018 0.00CROSS RIVER 2009 0.60DELTA 2008 0.67EBONYI 2007 0.73EDO 2007 0.73EKITI 2007 0.80ENUGU 2016 0.13GOMBE 2018 0.00IMO 2007 0.73JIGAWA 2018 0.80KADUNA 2018 0.00KANO 2018 0.00KATSINA 2018 0.00KEBBI 2018 0.00KOGI 2009 0.60KWARA 2006 0.80LAGOS 2007 0.73NASSARAWA 2007 0.73NIGER 2010 0.53OGUN 2013 0.33ONDO 2007 0.73OSUN 2007 0.73OYO 2006 0.80PLATEAU 2005 0.87RIVERS 2010 0.53SOKOTO 2018 0.00TARABA 2007 0.73YOBE 2018 0.00ZAMFARA 2018 0.00

12

Independent Variables

The independent variables were in the same categories as discussed in section III: problem

environment, female legislative presence, religious factors, and regional influences. The mea-

sure used in each category is named and defined in Table 2 below:

Table 2: VariablesVariable Definition Expected Sign

Innovation Score State’s innovation score

Median age at first marriageState median age at marriage for women in2003

Positive

Median age at first birth State’s median age at first birth in 2003 Positive

Median years of educationMedian total years of education for womenin 2003

Positive

Female legislative presence Percentage of women in state legislature PositiveSharia 0=non-sharia state; 1=sharia state Negative

Regional precedence

Negative 0=no neigboring state adoptedCRA in the same year previous or same year;1=at least one neighbor adopted CRA in pre-vious or same year

Positive

Attitude to gender equalityPercentage of residents who agree to a state-ment of gender equality

Positive

Methods

I estimate a tobit regression because the dependent variable (innovationscore) is censored

at 0. They were no adopters in 2003 or it would also be censored at 1 because its values

cannot exceed 1, according to Eqn 1. A tobit regression is appropriate because it is entirely

possible for a state to implement a policy before the federal government. That is one of the

features of a federation, in fact. In such a situation, the true innovation score would then be

less than zero. A tobit regression accounts for this.

13

InnovationScore = α + β1MedianY earsOfEducation+ β2MedianAgeAtMarriage

+ β3FemaleLegislativePresence+ β5Sharia+ β6RegionalPrecedence (2)

Results

The results of my analysis are presented in Table 3 below. Having seen that the correlation

of MedianAgeAtMarriage and MedianAgeAtFirstBirth was 0.96, I estimate regression (1)

without the latter. In alternate models, I replace MedianAgeAtMarriage and MedianAgeAt-

FirstBirth and MedianYearsOfEducation with a principle component indicator since they

come from the same survey and are arguably closely related. In developing countries like

Nigeria, it is evident that marriage signals the onset of childbirth in a way that it may not

in other contexts, and that education and age at marriage tend to move in the same direc-

tion for women. I therefore estimate a model where I combine these variables using principal

component analysis. Furthermore, I estimate a model including a measure of social attitudes

towards gender equality. Even though this reduces a small sample size further, the other

variables stay significant with a sizable relationship with innovation score.

14

15

Tab

le3:

Tob

itR

egre

ssio

nR

esult

s

VA

RIA

BL

ES

(1)

(AM

E)

(2)

(AM

E)

(3)

(AM

E)

(4)

(AM

E)

Med

ian

year

sof

educa

tion

-0.0

1-0

.01

-0.0

2-0

.02

(0.0

2)(0

.02)

(0.0

2)(0

.02)

Med

ian

age

atm

arri

age

0.07

**0.

07**

0.12

*0.

12*

(0.0

3)(0

.03)

(0.0

6)(0

.06)

Fem

ale

legi

slat

ive

pre

sence

0.04

***

0.04

***

0.04

***

0.04

***

0.03

**0.

03**

0.04

***

0.04

***

(0.0

1)(0

.01)

(0.0

1)(0

.01)

(0.0

1)(0

.01)

(0.0

1)(0

.01)

Shar

ia-0

.54*

**-0

.54*

**-0

.51*

**-0

.51*

**-0

.50*

**-0

.50*

**-0

.33*

*-0

.33*

*

(0.1

4)(0

.14)

(0.1

4)(0

.14)

(0.1

3)(0

.13)

(0.1

5)(0

.15)

Reg

ional

pre

ceden

ce0.

22**

*0.

22**

*0.

23**

*0.

23**

*0.

23**

*0.

23**

*0.

20**

0.20

**

(0.0

7)(0

.07)

(0.0

7)(0

.07)

(0.0

7)(0

.07)

(0.0

7)(0

.07)

Med

ian

age

atfirs

tbir

th-0

.07

-0.0

7

(0.0

7)(0

.07)

Pri

nci

pal

Com

pon

ent

Var

iable

0.07

**0.

07**

0.12

***

0.12

***

(Educa

tion

,M

arri

age,

&C

hildbir

th)

(0.0

3)(0

.03)

(0.0

4)(0

.04)

Att

itude

toge

nder

equal

ity

0.00

0.00

(0.0

0)(0

.00)

Con

stan

t-0

.88*

-0.5

50.

28**

*0.

12

(0.4

3)(0

.56)

(0.0

8)(0

.12)

Obse

rvat

ions

3636

3636

3636

2828

Sta

ndar

der

rors

inpar

enth

eses

***

p<

0.01

,**

p<

0.05

,*

p<

0.1

16

In the preferred model (1), median education level does not appear to be a significant

predictor of policy innovation. The coefficient is neither the expected sign nor is it statisti-

cally significant. It is unclear why this is the case as I would expect that states where women

are more educated would take less time to adopt the policy. In my discussion on policy in-

novation theory, I proposed two possible ways of thinking about the relationship between

the level of women’s education in a state and its adoption speed. With this result, it seems

that states may take longer because among their relatively more highly educated populace,

they do not see child marriage as a salient problem. In other words, states that have higher

education are less hurried to adopt the policy because it is not particularly pressing for their

residents. In any case, hypothesis 1 is not supported from my results.

In the same model 1 where I acknowledge the very high correlation between Medi-

anAgeAtMarriage and MedianAgeAtFirstBirth and drop the latter, I see that the former is

associated with faster adoption. Specifically, a 1 year increase in the median age at marriage

in a state is associated with 0.07 increase in innovation score, holding the other variables

constant. This is in line with hypothesis 2 that states where marriage is already commonly

delayed for whatever reason are the states that are quicker to adopt the CRA. It would then

seem that adopters are simply formalizing preexisting marriage practices.

Hypotheses 4 is also supported by the results. A 1 percentage point increase in the

number of women in state legislature is associated with a 0.04 increase in innovation score.

The variable with the largest relationship with innovation score is Sharia. According to

model 1, sharia law is associated with 0.51 lower innovation score which is in alignment with

the fact that all the non-adopters are those where Islamic religious law has previously been

adopted. And lastly, diffusion seems to be taking place regarding CRA adoption. States

that have neighbors who have adopted the policy in the previous or same year have a 0.23

higher innovation scores than other states. Hypothesis 6 is therefore supported.

17

Discussion and Policy Implications

The results of this analysis show that Islamic religious law seems to be the biggest predictor

of a state’s speed of CRA adoption in Nigeria. Having measured the predictive power of

Sharia laws, I am able to better focus the discussion on child marriage. On one hand, it

may mean that the CRA’s provisions on minimum age of marriage must be constitutional

for them to have any real impact across all states. Certainly, the process of creating this

reality would be complicated by the fact that the Constitution currently empowers states

to operate under Sharia if they so desire and contract marriages under that law. However,

given the grave consequences of child marriage for the education and health of young girls

as well as the children born to them in these marriages, the Nigerian government may

need to consider taking the necessary steps to write the minimum age for marriage into

the Constitution. Elaigwu and Galadima (2003) provide a thorough discussion on how the

boundaries of Sharia in Nigeria have been challenged by majority Muslim states and their

elected officials over time. With regards to child marriage, there seems to be a need to revive

the discussion on whether it violates the constitutional rights of Nigerian children.

My analysis also gave some evidence for regional diffusion of the CRA. This is as

expected because, as mentioned in Section I, there exist deep religious and cultural divides

and the resulting pockets of states that share the same general ethnicity, culture, and religion

tend to behave similarly. In 2006, 2 pairs of neighboring states adopted the policy in the east

(Abia and Anambra) and west (Oyo and Kwara). This suggests a like-mindedness among

them. Additionally, the legislators in neighboring states are often from the same political

parties. As such, they are connected, if not by political ideologies, then by similar power

retention strategies or reelection agendas.

There are several ways this project could be further developed. The impacts of the

problem environment should be explored further. In my analysis, while innovation was posi-

18

tively related to a culture of early marriage, existing female education levels had no significant

effect. This begins to speak to differences in what is defined as a problem. To be able to

further elaborate on this, other measures of a problem environment like the mortality rates

among teenage mothers during birth should be accounted for in future research, especially

since marriage is essentially synonymous with the start of childbirth in Nigeria. According

to the UNFPA13, Nigeria accounts for 40% of the fistula cases worldwide. Risk of the disease

drastically reduces as age at child birth increases because women become more physically

ready for labor and more likely to seek proper medical care.

Furthermore, the role of female legislative presence should be the topic of continued

research. By my results, women legislators do make a difference with regard to state action

on child marriage. However, with the overwhelming majority of Nigeria’s legislators being

male, a future project may survey male legislators on their attitudes towards girls’ and

women’s issues. Their views on issues of gender equality are likely to vary much more than

the variation in the presence of one gender, and this could have a more far-reaching impact

on the policy process.

Future research should also account for the impact of non-governmental organizations.

The 2010 National Human Rights Commission Amendment Act bestowed the commission

with more power than the 1995 iteration such that they are now allowed to intervene and

actively protect Nigerian children. In 2015, they stopped the marriage of a 40-year-old man

to a 13-year-old girl14. Events like this point to the potential impact that NGOs could

have on state legislatures. They could serve as the starting point for the court case(s) which

catapult child marriage onto the national legislative agenda and bring about a supreme court

decision that overrides the current marriage laws.

Furthermore, an in-depth analysis into particularly interesting states like Enugu would

13UNFPA http://nigeria.unfpa.org/topics/obstetric-fistula-014https://www.channelstv.com/2015/07/24/nhrc-stops-40-year-old-mans-marriage-to-a-minor/

19

be enlightening because though it is a majority Christian and southeastern state, it only

adopted the CRA in 2016. Similarly, Lagos, which is typically a leader in policy development

was not the first to adopt the policy. These states could be future case studies to gain insight

to the policy process around child rights in Nigeria and policy innovation in general.

Lastly, diffusion theory allows for the impact of policy entrepreneurs. Key actors in gov-

ernment as well as international figures can be sources of normative pressure to non-adopters.

In 2016, the Ministry of Women Affairs began making advocacy visits and campaigns for the

domestication of the CRA in all the states15. Nigeria has also been the recipient of Canada’s

attention on the matter of child marriage16. Since the role of policy entrepreneurs (indi-

viduals and associations) in influencing policy adoption is also supported by other studies

Mintrom (1997);Balla (2001), future research should look into the CRA case.

Conclusion

The main objective of this paper was to explore the determinants of child rights’ policy

innovation among Nigeria’s 36 states. I developed hypotheses based on policy innovation

theory which proposes internal determinants such as political, socioeconomic, and religious

factors, as well as diffusion from other states. The results of my analysis show adherence to

Islamic religious law or Sharia to be the strongest determinant of slower adoption while a

culture of later marriage is positively related to early adoption.

Several possible ways to further this research have been discussed and so this study

represents the start of a research agenda to advance the incorporation of data from developing

countries into the policy innovation literature as well as understand child marriage and child

marriage policies.

15FG Says It Will Continue To Protect Rights Of The Girl Child October 12, 2016 Channelstv16Canadian Ambassador Seeks Implementation Of Child Rights Act August 1, 2017 canadiangovernment

20

Appendix

Table 4: Sources of Adoption Years

State Source

ABIA

6th Abia State Assembly Children Parlia-ment Inaugurated http://www.factnewsonline

.com/news/detail.php?id=2754&title=6th

-ABIA-STATE-ASSEMBLY-CHILDREN-PARLIAMENT

-INAUGURATEDLastAccessed05/01/2018ADAMAWA N/A

AKWA IBOMNigeria: Abuse of Child Rights Law in Akwa Ibomhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201505210900.html

ANAMBRA

Okoye, A.C. (2018) Child Right Law: Anam-bra Government to Revitalize Family Courtshttp://www.absradiotv.com/10409-child-right

-law-anambra-govt-to-revitalize-family-courtsBAUCHI N/A

BAYELSA

Ending Violence Against Children in Nigeriahttp://www.togetherforgirls.org/wp-content/

uploads/2017/08/2015-2016-Ending-Violence

-Against-Children-Nigeria-Progress-report.pdf

BENUE

Report of the Mapping and Assessment of ChildProtection Systems in Benue State (2014) http://

www.socialserviceworkforce.org/system/files/

resource/files/Report%20of%20the%20Mapping%

20and%20Assessment%20of%20Child%20Protection%

20Systems%20in%20Benue%20State%20Nigeria.pdfBORNO N/A

CROSS RIVEREnding Violence Against Children in Nige-ria (2014) https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/

NG endviolence crossriverpriotityactions.pdf

DELTA

Delta Child Rights Law: Warri Court Orders Ar-rest of Parents, Guardians of Minor Homesexuals,Gays, Cultists (2014) http://thewillnigeria.com/

news/delta-child-right-law-warri-court

-orders-arrest-of-parents-guardians-of-minor

-homosexuals-gays-cultists/

EBONYIUNICEF (2007) https://www.unicef.org/wcaro/

WCARO Nigeria Factsheets CRA.pdf

EDOEdo State Family Court (2007) http://edojudiciary

.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/EDO-STATE

-FAMILY-COURT-CIVIL-PROCEDURE-RULES-2017.pdf

21

EKITIUNICEF (2007) http://ekitistate.gov.ng/2012/

06/ekiti-goes-tough-on-child-right-abuses/

ENUGU

Educational Resource Providers https://www

.educationalresourceproviders.com/child-abuse

-and-the-childs-rights-and-responsibility-law

-just-passed-into-law-in-enugu-state/GOMBE N/A

IMOUNICEF (2007) https://www.unicef.org/wcaro/

WCARO Nigeria Factsheets CRA.pdf

JIGAWA

Braimah, T. S. (2014). Child marriage in NorthernNigeria: Section 61 of Part I of the 1999 Constitutionand the protection of children against child marriage.African Human Rights Law Journal, 14(2), 474-488.

KADUNA NAKANO NAKATSINA NAKEBBI NA

KOGI

Sule, D. (2016) In Kogi, Child Labour Thrives De-spite The Child Rights Act. Daily Trust https://

www.pressreader.com/nigeria/daily-trust/

20161118/282007556979923

KWARA

Abdulraheem-Mustapha, M. A. (2016). Child jus-tice administration in the Nigerian Child Rights Act:Lessons from South Africa. African Human Rights LawJournal, 16(2), 435-457

LAGOSLagos Child Rights Law 2007 http://www.dsvrtlagos

.org/pdfs/Child’s%20Right%20Law%202007%20(2)

.pdfLastAccessed05/01/2018

NASSARAWAUNICEF (2007) https://www.unicef.org/wcaro/

WCARO Nigeria Factsheets CRA.pdf

NIGERThe Eagle Online (2017) https://theeagleonline

.com.ng/60-year-old-man-guilty-to-raping-12

-year-old-daughter-13-year-old-friend/

OGUNAdebowale, S. (2013) Ogun Assembly Passes Bill onChilds Rights https://theeagleonline.com.ng/ogun

-assembly-passes-bill-on-childs-right/

ONDO

Gbadamosi, H. (2018) Child Rights Act: We haveEstablished Family Court Ondo Chief Judge. Nige-rian Tribune http://www.tribuneonlineng.com/

child-right-act-we-have-established-family

-court-%E2%80%95ondo-chief-judge/

OSUN

Osun Inaugurates Child Rights Act in LGAs.NBF Topics http://www.nigerianbestforum.com/

generaltopics/osun-inaugurates-child-rights%

E2%80%99-act-in-lgas/

22

OYO

Oyo State Action Plan for the Elimination ofChild Labour in Nigeria (2014-2017). (2014)http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/

---africa/---ro-addis ababa/---ilo-abuja/

documents/publication/wcms 302555.pdf

PLATEAUPlateau State Child Protection System Strength-ening Mapping & Assessment Report http://www

.socialserviceworkforce.org/system/

RIVERS

Domesticating Rights Law: The Rivers Examplehttp://www.thetidenewsonline.com/2012/05/27/

domesticating-child-rights-law-%E2%80%A6the

-rivers-example/SOKOTO NA

TARABAUNICEF 2007 https://www.unicef.org/wcaro/

WCARO Nigeria Factsheets CRA.pdfYOBE NAZAMFARA NA

Figure 3: Histogram of Dependent Variable

23

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