The Volta Regional Director of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Thywill Eyra Kpe, has re-emphasised the need to fight child marriage in the country, as it has become a threat to national development.
Speaking in an interview with Adom News Correspondent Odehyeba Owusu Job during a Monitoring and Sensation of Community Parents Advocacy (CoPAGS) at Kpeyiborme in the South Dayi Municipality of the Volta Region to stop child marriage in the community and Ghana at large, the Volta Regional Director of Gender, Children and Social, Mrs Thywill Eyra Kpe, called on parents and other stakeholders to support all initiatives to end child marriage.
According to her, “No girl child must be married before 18 years, she has the dream to be who she wants to be. As a nation, we should ensure that both the boy child and the girl child are allowed equal opportunity to education, it is not a society of only men.”
Educating the girl child, according to her, was critical to the development of a nation and that to be able to solve the problems affecting the girl child, there was the need for everybody to work together to end child marriage in the country.
As part of the initiative, the Assemblyman for Todome Kpalime Electoral Area, Senaya Eric, also in an interview with Adom News, said the issue of child marriage had denied the girl child the opportunity to education, and also affected her health.
He said through the support of the government and civil society, Ghana would be able to eradicate child marriage by investing in education, engaging in dialogue with young girls, and through the commitment of the Gender Ministry, the country would lead the way in fighting and eradicating child marriage.
He, therefore, encouraged stakeholders to invest in the girl child by educating her to appreciate the implications of child marriage and to help girls to be responsible to contribute to national development.
Finally, some of the community members who participated in the program also seized the opportunity to appeal to the government to help provide some basic items such as sanitary pads to the girl child in schools to help them focus on their education.
According to the residents, most of the Girls drop out of school and go into early Child Marriage because, their parents are not able to provide them with some basic needs such as sanitary pads to keep them in the school and therefore drop out of school into early Child Marriage and therefore calling on the government to support the Girl Child in the schools.