End violence against children - World Vision
The Nkwanta Cluster Manager of World Vision Ghana, Mrs Salomey Yeboah, has appealed to Ghanaians to help end violence against children, saying the act contravened the life God desired for children.
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She said World Vision International abhorred violence against children in all forms, including physical, sexual and mental violence, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, harm or abuse and commercial sexual exploitation, which had the tendency of preventing the child from living in a safe environment.
According to her, 60 per cent of children between the ages of two and 14 had been physically abused before, while another 150 million and 1.2 million others were into child labour and child trafficking respectively, every year, across the world.
Theme on ending violence
Mrs Yeboah, who made these remarks at a stakeholders’ forum on ending violence against children at Nkwanta in the Volta Region, said, “It takes a world to end violence against children.”
She was speaking on Ghana’s five-year campaign on the theme: “End Child Marriages Now!, It Takes Us All”. She explained that on the average one in five girls in Ghana got married before their 18th birthday, with a national average estimated at 21 per cent.
She said three regions, namely Northern, Upper West and the Upper East regions, were leading with 39.6 per cent, 37.3 per cent and 36.1 per cent respectively; but said child marriage occurred in all regions and, therefore, had become a national issue that called for the involvement of all stakeholders for the protection of children.
Appeal to stakeholders
Mrs Yeboah also called on stakeholders to strengthen formal prevention and protection of children through the enforcement of laws and policies on child marriages.
The Head of Social Welfare and Community Development of Nkwanta South District Assembly, Mr Innocent Komla Agbolosu, appealed to parents to desist from forcing their girl-child into marriages.
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Mr Agbolosu stated also that the minimum age for marriage of whatever kind should be 18 years and stressed that any person who contravened the law was committing an offence and was liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding GH¢500.00 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding one year or to both.
He appealed to stakeholders to help fight violence against women, since the act did not demonstrate love and affection, but rather hatred, stressing that violence against women was a greater cause of ill-health than that of traffic accident, cancer and malaria combined.