Denying girls their rights: the case of forced and child marriages in Ghana
Anyone who would use a compass to find the exact community, district, municipality or region where child and forced marriage is practiced in Ghana would fail. This is because the practice of forced and child marriage is not limited to a particular community, district, municipality, ethnic group or region in the country; it is a national scourge.
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The menace of child and forced marriages is everywhere in Ghana although some areas have higher figures than others in terms of the practice.
Rooted deeply in some of our age-long traditions and customs, the issue of child and forced marriage is not alien to some Ghanaian communities.
While some girls are forcibly abducted by some men into their homes as wives or are forced into marriages by their parents, others, however, escape from their own parents’ homes to settle down with the men as wives.
In some communities within the Saboba District in the Northern Region, for instance, there is a custom of barter trade of girls where young girls are exchanged in order to enable their male siblings to marry.
Marriage
Marriage as a social institution is defined legally to be a ritually or socially recognised legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between the parties, as well as their children, their in-laws and society in general.
Child marriage refers to a marriage where one or both parties in the marriage is below the age of 18.
According to the 1992 Constitution, a person under age 18 is a child and therefore, cannot marry or be given away in marriage.
Marriage of either a girl or a boy before the age of 18 is recognised in international legal instruments as a violation of a child’s human rights.
Child and forced marriage is an open secret in Ghana. The practice has gained strong acceptance within some Ghanaian communities, with the practice highly hailed particularly among the uneducated rural populations.
It must be noted that while boys are rarely married off early, girls on the other hand are disproportionately affected and form the vast majority of victims of child and forced marriages.
Figures
The practice of child and forced marriage is more alarming in the three northern regions.
A research conducted by the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) in 2015 indicates that one-third of girls in developing countries are married before the age of 18 and one in nine are married before their 15th birthday.
It is estimated that globally, more than 700 million children are married before attaining their 18th birthday.
West and Central Africa, for instance, follow closely after South Asia with two out of five (41 per cent) girls marrying before 18 years.
Child brides
It is common to see girls below the age of 18 being pulled out of school to get married to men in most remote parts of the country.
The future of children lies in the provision of measures and actions that will provide for them appropriate levels of protection, survival and policies aimed at ensuring a good future for them.
Child and forced marriages do not only thwart the development and aspirations of the individual child, they also affect the overall development of the country as a whole.
The sad news is that these child brides do not receive full training that would make them responsible and economically empowered individuals in future.
Studies have shown that most of these child brides have become victims of sexual violence and are under domestic slavery in their arranged husbands’ homes both in the country and elsewhere.
It is also sad to mention that these child brides do not have the power to negotiate safe sexual behaviours with their partners which makes them more exposed to Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) including HIV.
Due to complications, many child brides have lost their lives through childbirth. This is because these girls are coerced into having children while they are still children.
Studies have shown that girls who marry under the age of 15 are five times more likely to die during childbirth than their female counterparts in their 20s.
Similarly, infants born to child-mothers under the age of 18 are 60 per cent more likely to die in the first year of life than infants born to mothers who are 19 years and above.
Customs
Many people have cited poverty, protection of girl’s virginity and family honour, gender-biased cultural norms, lack of sex education and fear of the stigma of teenage pregnancy as some of the major proponents of forced and child marriages in the country.
In some communities, traditions and customs permit girls to be given as gifts to “big men”, titled men, or as a means of ‘’compensation’’ and ‘’settlement’’ of family debts, inherited liabilities and/or settlement of religious obligations.
Effects
In an interview, a former Northern Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Mr I.P.S. Zakaria-Saa said complications from pregnancy and childbirth were the leading causes of death among those aged 15 – 19 in many countries.
According to him, infants born to adolescent mothers have a higher risk of being stillborn or dying soon after birth.
He added that children born to child brides were more likely to have low birth weight which could have a long-term impact on their health and their physical and cognitive development.
Mr Zakaria-Saa said pregnancy undermined the adolescent girl’s development “because it stops her growth and negatively affects her nutritional status”.
He explained that child marriage denied girls their childhood joy and development and also disrupted their education or training.
The Northern Regional Director of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Emmanuel Holortu, in an interview, said forced and early marriages often resulted in the abuse of the child brides.
He observed that, “This type of marriage often results in domestic violence as you may have the man or woman with you physically but emotionally and psychologically, the person is not there with you.”
He therefore, called for a concerted effort to fight the menace of forced and child marriages in the country.
Prevention
There are a number of ways that child and forced marriages can be ended in our Ghanaian societies. We must strive to get girls into school and keep them in school and ensure that they have access to sexual and reproductive health services.
We can also end forced and child marriages by working with parents, traditional rulers, religious leaders and the local communities so that child and forced marriage can be seen and exposed as an impediment to their individual development.
Laws on child and forced marriages must be strictly enforced in order to punish the perpetrators and also discourage the practice.
Ending child and forced marriages in the country would help to improve the rights of girls, their education, health and job opportunities, thus breaking the vicious cycle of poverty that has been passed down from one generations to another.
Writer’s email: [email protected]
