By Dennis Peprah
Sunyani, March. 31, GNA – Child marriage and teenage pregnancy persist in the Bono Region, despite intensified efforts to tackle the menace, Mrs Jocelyn Adii, the Bono Regional Director of the Department of Gender has said.
Close to 19 per cent of young women between 20 and 24 years in the region gave birth before their 17th birthday, and thus increasing school drop rate in the region.
Ending child marriage would therefore have positive and significant impact on educational attainment of girls and subsequently increase women’s expected earnings and household welfare that would lead to substantial reductions in population growth over time.
“Ending marriage will further reduce under-five mortality in the region,” Mrs Adii said this at the opening session of a two-day capacity building workshop on strengthening community systems for protection from child marriage, and sexual and gender-based violence, HIV, and tuberculosis stigma in Sunyani.
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in calibration with the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) organised the workshop that sought to strengthen the capacities of community leaders, chiefs and queens Assembly members and youth associations to handle and prevent issues of child marriage and abuses in local communities.
Participants, including leaders of religious and faith-based organizations drawn from the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions and were taken through most driving causes of child marriage.
Child marriage, Mrs Adii indicated had negative implications on the nation’s economic prosperity and development, saying the practice left many children in a very vulnerable position in instances of divorce and widowhood.
“When a girl is put into marriage, her fundamental human rights and dignity have been compromised and violated, and consequently put her at high risk of contracting HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and other debilitating medical conditions such as obstetrics fistula,” she stated.
Mrs Adii regretted child marriage had put many girls at risk of sexual, physical, and psychological violence throughout their lives, inimical to their growth and socio-economic development and therefore appealed to the participants to influence change in beliefs, attitude and social norms that drove child marriage in communities to ensure accelerated access to quality education.
She mentioned poor parenting and enforcement of laws, gender inequalities, economic insecurity and outmoded traditional practices and social norms as key contributing factors fueling child marriages in the region.
The Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Beatrice Korsah, the Bono Regional Coordinator of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service said domestic and gender-based violence had serious devastating consequences on the victims.
She said child marriage was a serious offence punishable by law under the Domestic Violence Act 732, 2007, and warned perpetrators to refrain from the practice.
Mr Eric Ohene-Djan, the CHAG Zonal Team Lead in-charge of Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, Ashanti and Oti regions implored everybody to also help in tackling discrimination and stigmatization against persons with chronic infections such as HIV and TB.
“Instead, we must all support them to take their medications regularly”, he added.
GNA