File photo used only for illustrative purpose
Nigerians have been called upon to shun the culture of early marriage and child brides.
The experts who made this call say the practice can lead to future psychiatric issues.
Vanguard reports that the call was made at the ordinary general meeting and scientific conference of the ARD, FNPH held recently at Yaba, Lagos.
The theme of the event which had an interactive session with
members of invited secondary schools, practitioners and guest speakers
was child marriages, the psychiatric consequences, and sub-theme of the
media and psychiatry, proper reporting practices for mental illnesses.
Highlighting the dangers of getting married at a very young age,
Dr.Grace Ijarogbe, a specialist child and adolescent psychiatrist
highlighted the psychiatric and societal problems associated with child
bride and child labor.
“It is very disgusting for the child, to leave home at that
age, most children are just getting accustomed to their family some are
still forming their bonds and ties with their siblings and other family
members, and so when they have to be uprooted from this family and have
to be joined to strange family, it is very disgusting to them.
"A lot of child bride are afraid of their spouse, they are
dominated in their new environment and they forced to do so many things
that they don’t do in their family. Because the main reason why people
have decided to go for the child bride is because they believe they can
bend these children emotionally and psychologically against their will
and they waste no time to bend these children to their will. This means
that her value needs to change, her views needs to change everything
needs to change to suit the new culture where she is married.
"Marriage is difficult enough for an adult who have acquired
enough intelligence, social skills but for a child who doesn’t know
anything and all that, most often, it is done by cohesion, a slavery
kind of cohesion.”
In his opening speech, Dr. Ken Uwajeh emphasized on the essence of
proper psychiatric practices as a panacea for a lot of societal ills. He
also emphasized on the need for doctors and other privileged members of
the society to be more emphatic towards the poor and the needy in our
society.
The event was chaired by Dr. Bayo Aderiye, the chairman of the
Lagos state health service commission, and other members of the high
table were the chief host, the acting medical director of the
institution, Dr. RichardAdebayo, Dr. Oluwaniyi S.O., consultant
psychiatrist, HOD forensic unit just to mention a few.
The guest lecturer, as part of integrating new media practices into
psychiatry practice, Dr. Maymunah Kadiri, a consultant psychiatrist,
former president of the association and CEO of the pinnacle medical
services, also talked about the increasing use of new media and
technology applications being deployed to ensure prompt diagnosis and an
effective client-centered management.
The highlight of the day was the inauguration of the ARD
foundation, which the doctors pledged to continuously contribute
generously to, with aims of alleviating the sufferings of their poor and
less privileged patients.
Generous funding was also provided by other guests at the meeting.
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