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The Upper East Region has been pointed as the region with the highest prevalence rate of child marriages in the country, with a rate of 50%.

The Upper East Region and Northern Region followed as the second and third regions with a prevalence rate of 39% and 36% respectively.

These were contained in a presentation delivered by Ms Dinah Adiko, Technical Advisor at the Ministry of Gender, at a stakeholders’ meeting held in Accra last week on ending child marriages in Ghana.

According to Ms Adiko, per data from Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey, 2011 (MICS), in Ghana about 28% of girls married before 18 and about 6% married before 15.

In her presentation, she stated that globally 1,166,666 girls marry monthly, 269,230 weekly, 38,461 daily and 27 every minute.

These figures, according to her, were worrying and needed to be nipped in the bud before the situation escalates and deprives young girls of their human rights.

Reiterating the severity of the situation, the Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Della Sowah, stated that violence against women and girls affects millions of women annually worldwide.

According to her, child marriage has become a serious violation of human rights in Ghana, adding that not only did it deprive young girls of accessing free basic education but also deprived them of living quality lives as women.

She acknowledged the effort of activist groups and other actors to complement government’s efforts to address the situation.

The Deputy Minister thanked the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Royal Netherlands Embassy for their continuous support to better the lives of people.

Dr Agnes Akosua Didoo, former UNICEF Representative to Tanzania, who chaired the function, stated that child marriages robbed the girl child of exploring her full potential in any pursuit of life, especially academically.

She noted that for inequality among men and women to be bridged, girls must stop suffering from inhuman cultural practices that affected that overall development and robbed them of living quality lives.

Dr Didoo said, “The situation would not change if the law does not come out with clear-cut lines between cultural excesses and abuses.”

Annalisa Caparello, Child Specialist, UNICEF, reiterated her outfit’s support to ensure that children all over live meaningful and quality lives.

According to her, some of these girls die during pregnancy because their bodies are not well developed to carry and deliver babies.

Those who live are also not able to nurture their wards well since they are themselves children who need nurturing.

A judge of a gender-based violence court in Accra, Mrs Rita Agyeman-Budu, urged the public to report child marriages for perpetrators to face the full rigours of the law.

“We will bite when such cases are reported and brought before as,” she stressed. 

The meeting is part of preliminary activities of the Anti-Child Marriage Campaign to end child marriages, after which a three-year project would be launched to fight the canker.

The project would be undertaken by the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Royal Netherlands Embassy.