Source: AllAfrica
Hundreds of women, under the aegis of Concerned Women Forum, yesterday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, staged a peaceful protest against the resolution by the Senate on early child marriage.

The protesters, led by the Iyalode of Egbaland, Mrs Alaba Lawson, described the decision of the upper legislative chamber as shameful and unbecoming of a respectable law-making body.

The Senate had recently voted to retain certain clause in Section 29(4)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, which defines the full age of a woman seeking to renounce her citizenship and suggests discriminatory marriage age for females.

But market women, religious bodies, civil society organisations and various women groups across Ogun State gathered yesterday to denounce the controversial senate's resolution on child marriage.

The protesters were armed with placards with inscription such as:"Give us education, not marriage", "Child marriage is barbaric, no to it", "Woe to husbands of underage, they are evil", and "Ogun children reject child marriage."

• Nigeria