http://www.standard-tribune.com/?p=2769
Using girls to raise money, repay debts or compensate favors is an open and longstanding practice in this landlocked community of peasant farmers and wild fruit gatherers on the Nigerian border. Guardians of the tradition – rich and influential men who run traditional cults and shrines – defend it as a legitimate path to marriage for girls and an escape from poverty for parents who have nothing else... But in reality, it is a criminal enterprise of blackmail and extortion that traps young girls and women womb-to-tomb in domestic servitude, sexual abuse and public scorn.