Ms. Aba Oppong, Chairperson of the NGO, “Girls Not Brides”, said it was important to ensure that political leaders kept faith with what they had publicly said they were going to do or agreed to do.

She was speaking at a public education forum held by her organization in Kumasi under the theme “Empowering girls: before, during and after crisis”. She expressed concern about the practice of forced child marriages across that nation and said that was unhelpful to efforts at achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The practice was more pronounced in the Upper West and Upper East Regions. Ms. Oppong said pushing young girls into early marriage was hampering the fight to lift women out of poverty.

That was why all should accept to work together to provide protection for the girl child.

She added that they should be aided to pursue academic careers and learn vocations to become economically self-supporting. Ms. Oppong reminded everybody to recognize that the minimum age of marriage was 18 years and that anyone who married off a child was breaking the law. 

She asked that more investment was put into education and health programmes for girls.

Mr. Stephen Ofosu Darfour, the Ashanti Regional Director, Department of Children, called for parents to place premium on girls’ education.