Group Calls for Enforcement of Child Marriage Laws

The Purim African Youth Development Platform (PAYDP), a youth advocacy group, has urged the government to enforce laws against child marriage to help safeguard the future of young girls across the country.

Mrs Aku Xornam Kevi, Executive Director of PAYDP, said though child marriage was illegal and a criminal offence in Ghana, enforcement was a major challenge.

Both the 1992 Constitution and the 1998 Children’s Act set the legal age for marriage at 18 for both girls and boys.

Mr Kevi was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), on the sideline of a National Kayayei Stakeholders and Coalition Meeting in Accra.

The meeting was organised by PAYDP in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

According to the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, on the average, one out of five girls in Ghana was married before their 18th birthday, thus, the percentage of girls between 20 years and 24 years who were married or in a union by the 18 was 21 per cent nationally.

However, for girls living in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions, this number increases to one out of three girls (34 per cent).

In 2017, the PAYDP was engaged to implement the child marriage programme under the theme: “Integrated Legal Literacy, Livelihood Skills Training and Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Services for Female Head Porters (Kayayei) in selected Urban Markets in Three Regions in Ghana”.

This intervention, aimed at empowering vulnerable adolescent Kayayei to make informed decisions, improve their economic status and reduce their vulnerabilities to Gender Based Violence (GBV) and its consequences, including forced marriages and co-habitation.

Mrs Kevi said the Coalition had two operational centres for adolescent girls in Kumasi and Techiman, whereas, 1500 girls had been reached with Life planning skills information and skills.

She said that the girls were getting sexual reproductive health and gender-based violence information; adding that “we also training them in leadership and how to acquire entrepreneurial skills”.

Mrs Kevi noted that the girls were also being trained as peer educators to help champion the fight against child marriage in their various communities.

Miss Juliana Harrison Mutaah, Gender Desk Officer of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Techiman Municipal Assembly, said when a girl was married as a child, her fundamental rights were violated.

Additionally, she said, leaving children in very vulnerable positions in instances of divorce and widowhood had negative implications for Ghana’s economic prosperity and development.

Ms Mutaah said a World Bank Report recommends that ending child marriage would have a large positive effect on the educational attainment of girls and their children and as well reduce rates of under-five mortality and delayed physical environment due to a lack of appropriate nutrition.

Madam Selina Owusu, a Gender Analyst at UNFPA, also told GNA that the head porters needed to be empowered to help recognise the fact that within the development sector, they had a role to play.

She said head porters were a core that the UNFPA worked with due to all the issues they faced in the markets; as they migrated in search of livelihoods and also fled from these harmful practices, including child marriage.

Madam Owusu, who said research shows that such practices were high, expressed the hope that the girls could translate the knowledge acquired and educate parents, peers and others on the dangers of child marriage.

Source: GNA