Bolgatanga, June 23, GNA – Some youth in the Upper East region have called on the government and stakeholders to include young people in decision-making at all levels to help address challenges confronting their growth and development.
They expressed worry at the many challenges preventing their development and the neglect by major stakeholders to seek their views in the formulation and implementation of interventions to address the challenges.
The youth expressed these concerns at Bolgatanga after a stakeholder engagement organised by Norsaac, an advocacy organisation, as part of the implementation of the Power to Youth project funded by Rutgers with support from the Netherlands.
The five-year project, being implemented in consortium with Youth Advocates Ghana, GH Alliance and Songtaba, seeks to empower young people to help address challenges such as unintended teenage pregnancies, harmful practices and sexual and gender-based violence.
A communiqué issued at the end of the engagement and read by Ms Dorcas Zoogah, the Spokesperson for the youth, noted that young people, particularly those in the rural communities, continued to face challenges, including dehumanising cultural practices such as widowhood rites, street hawking, rape, defilement and forced marriages, among others leading to unintended pregnancies and school dropouts.
“On SGBV, it is sad to note that many young people are being raped, defiled and domestically abused in various forms. More disturbing is the perpetration of these acts by older people some of whom are taking advantage of the vulnerability of young people.
“These youngsters should be in school but because of these acts, they are forced to drop out, made to live with life-threatening complications and become mothers too early,” it said.
The communique demanded that the youth, apart from being included in family and community decision-making, should have representation at the Assembly and regional levels.
“Cases of defilement and rape should be handled with the outmost rights and interest of the victims in mind. All opinion leaders and other relevant parties concerned must collaborate to solve these issues amicably,”
Apart from urging the Government to pay the caterers of the school feeding programme to ensure that they returned to their duties to ensure effective academic work, the communique called on the District Assemblies to take urgent steps to clear all beggars on the streets and provide protection for children.
Naba Roland Akwara Atogumdeya III, the Paramount Chief of the Sirigu Traditional Area, said teenage pregnancy was one of the major causes of low girl education in the area and called on stakeholders to address the issue.
He called on the District Assemblies to help the traditional authorities to enact, gazette and enforce by-laws in their communities to ensure that perpetrators of violence against youth, particularly teenage pregnancy, and child marriage were severely punished to serve as a deterrent to others
Ms Yeri Nancy, the Girls and Female Empowerment Manager, Norsaac, said the project was being implemented in 40 communities in 10 districts in the northern part of Ghana to build synergies among all stakeholders towards ending unintended pregnancies, sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices.
GNA