 The trauma of being in forced marriages filled with a series of violent abuses is one which oftentimes contributes to broken homes and failed matrimonies. A 2021 report by Save the Children International revealed that about 78% of girls in northern Nigeria are victims of forced child marriage. 26-year-old Amina Zakari, a survivor of SGBV in Kano State, narrates a horrific experience in a forced marriage filled with abuses for eight years. Correspondent Stephen Enoch has more in the show. To date, Amina is hurt by her family's decision to forcefully marry her off to a man she never wanted. Aside from the multiple sexual violence she had to grapple with in her eight-year-old marriage, the matrimony may have shattered her hopes of attaining a university degree. Irrespective of the facts that her family knew about this series of abuses, they insisted she remained in the marriage. My mother is late and I've been living with my extended family who forced me to marry a man I didn't love when I was 18 years old. Because I was threatening to either marry him or leave the house, I had no option than to agree to the forced marriage. We have been in the marriage for eight years and throughout this period, we always had issues and he always beats me up messlessly. I remember a day he beats me so badly that I had several injuries in my body. Then, I was four months pregnant. After visiting the hospital for treatment, I was told that I had lost the baby. This made me feel so bitter to the point that I had to run to my father because I couldn't bear it anymore, but my extended family still forced me back to my husband's house. My husband told them that I had a spiritual problem, which is why we always had issues in the marriage. When she couldn't take the ill treatment any longer, she gave in to thoughts of suicide. Amina wants a divorce, but her husband and extended family members are opposed to it. On a Saturday night when I was temporarily staying at my father's house, my husband and the other extended family lied to my dad that another man was trying to steal me from my husband, which is why I want a divorce and run away. These allegations made me bitter and when I told them I would kill myself if they don't let me be, they told me to go ahead. Days later, I tried to commit suicide, but someone caught me and afterwards, I reached out to the Kano State Human Rights Commission to intervene in my situation. Shehu Abulahi, the Kano State Coordinator of the National Human Rights Office, says Amina's family will be engaged and the marriage will be deserved since there is a threat to life. We call all the parties involved, including the respondent, that is the husband, then the family, if they have parents, we call the parents and discuss it amicably, if they agreed or they resolved it at our level so that the marriage can be dissolved and dealt with accordingly. But if it couldn't, we refer the case to courts for the decision and mostly the cases we refer the court, the court will decide on the favour of the victim. The federation of Muslim women associations in Nigeria recently trained journalists in Kano on issues relating to sexual and gender-based violence and experiences like Halima's. Mohammed Abu Bakr, the D-mail officer at Form 1, says religious and traditional leaders have a role to play in LGBT cases. For community leaders, they have this territory or they have the structure in engaging with other people from the community. So true, they are officers, let me say exalted officers, they receive some of these complaints which they manage, but now we're trying to tell them that some of these issues, they can't manage it. Even the religious leaders, we're trying to say that are already established government institutions that are taking care of some of these issues. So when they receive some of these cases, it's good, you know, they channel it to the appropriate authority so that they are the ones in charge, they are the ones that knows how they can mitigate some of these issues. The way forward is more awareness, more sensitization, more training for people in understanding what is expected when an issue like this happens, either in their community or any working place. As Amina seeks an end to her eight-year-old abusive marriage, she hopes to pick up the pieces of her life by starting afresh. Steven Enoch plus Steven Hughes, Kano.