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 The poster displayed here emphasises the need to protect children against childhood marriage
The poster displayed here emphasises the need to protect children against childhood marriage

Tarkwa-Nsuaem tackles forced childhood marriages

It is not uncommon to find young girls between the ages of 13 and 18 in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality getting pregnant, causing the girl-child to drop out of school while some are given out in forced marriages to those persons responsible for their pregnancies.

This is a violation of the Children’s Act (Act 560), that defines child marriage as marriage before 18 years of age and considers this practice as a violation of human right.

To enhance the knowledge of the community, and to encourage actors to desist from the practice, the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Assembly office of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has organised a stakeholders’ capacity training workshop on forced childhood marriages at Tarkwa in the Western Region.

Two-year project 

The programme formed part of a two-year project funded by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), which is currently being implemented in five communities across the municipality.

The overall objective of the project is to promote the rights and protection of children, particularly to ensure that the incidence of forced childhood marriages in the municipality in particular, and Ghana as a whole, is eliminated or reduced.

When the project is effectively implemented, it will make parents, communities, traditional authorities, and field-based organisations (FBOs) in the selected communities, proactive and responsive in dealing with forced childhood marriages and other forms of child abuse and neglect.

Participants in the workshop were chiefs, queenmothers, unit committee and assembly members, representatives of religious bodies, heads of basic schools from the beneficiary communities, representatives of community-based organisations (CBOs), officials of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAG) and the Social Welfare Department.

They drew an action plan collectively to ensure effective implementation of the two-year project in the beneficiary communities.

Education

The Western Regional Director of the NCCE, Mr Arthur Alphonsus, in an address underscored the need for all stakeholders to participate actively in the fight against the menace of childhood marriages and all other forms of child abuse which were on the increase in the region, leading to an abrupt end of the education of the victims.

‘‘It also has a consequential effect on their physical and psychological development and exposes them to several forms of hazards which lead to an expansion of the poverty gap. Section 14 of the Act provides that a person shall not force a child to be betrothed, to be subjected to a dowry transaction or to be married,’’ Mr Alphosus observed.

The Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Director of the NCCE, Mr Peter Dyaka,  who facilitated the training, attributed the root causes of early marriages to poverty, ignorance and peer pressure, as well as customs and religious belief and the lack of awareness of the rights of the child, among other factors.

 

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