A child bride in Nigeria has confessed to poisoning her new husband with rat poison.
According to The Mirror Wasila Umaru, 14, was forced to marry 35-year-old Umaru Sani last week.
Sani invited a dozen of his friends to his home to celebrate his recent marriage and his teenage bride prepared a rice dish for the occasion, according to The New York Daily News. It was in the rice that Umaru placed rat poison, which she’d purchased at a local market earlier that week.
Sani and one of his friends died the same day, while two others died later in the hospital.
Umaru admitted to poisoning her husband because she did not love him.
Child brides are common in Northern Nigeria where much of the population is Muslim. It has been reported that about 50 percent of girls are married before they are 18.
While the United Nations equates child marriage as slavery and children are meant to be protected under Nigeria’s Child Rights Act, but this is often circumvented by Sharia Law, which is the body of Islamic law. Sharia law regulates public and private life for those living in countries where the legal system uses Islam as a basis.
Umaru will likely be charged with culpable homicide.