A Traditional ruler in the Northern region, Bagzaa Naa Alhassan Issahaku has revealed that Northern region in 2012 recorded 39.6 percent in child marriage making it the first in the country.
This he noted is due to the lack of knowledge about sexuality education both at home and in school. Statistics from Unicef also reveals the region was still on top in child marriage with 28 percent in 2017.
He said child-marriages and teenage pregnancies were dominant in the country especially in the northern sector and stressed the need for the citizenry to join hands and stop the social canker.
‘’This is a serious problem which contributes to poverty in communities and cut the girl child of her ambitions’’, he noted.
He expressed the need to empower the girl child through education and skill training to help end teenage pregnancies and child marriage to enable them contribute to the country’s economic growth. Bagzaa Naa Alhassan made the revelation to Zaa news on the effects of child marriage.
According to him, child marriage is pregnancy related and cannot be linked to traditional or cultural beliefs considering the fact that the country’s sexuality education is not going down well with citizens and called for quality education on sexuality education at home and school.
‘’You cannot say child marriage is caused by tradition or cultural belief knowing that children are not thought what they need to know about their reproductive health’’.
Bagzaa Naa Alhassan thinks though there is nothing wrong with government implementing Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in the new curriculum it should be thought by technically trained teachers on the subject.
He has also asked that parents take up their responsibilities by providing the necessary needs for their children to avoid teenage pregnancies and child marriage.
In Ghana, it is estimated that one in five girls marry before their 18th birthday and one in 20 girls is married before her 15th birthday. Child marriage is a human rights violation disproportionately affecting girls in lower and middle income countries and serious public health implications.
By: Lilian D. Walter
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