Kpetoe (V/R), April 01, GNA- Mr Samuel Tseganu, Sponsorship and Child Protection Officer, World Vision Ghana, has called for a collaborative effort to deal with issues of child marriage in the country.
He said the menace was having serious toll on education, health and economic prospects of children regardless of their sex, thus the need for collective efforts and drastic measures to nip it in the bud.
Mr Tseganu was speaking at a launch of a project dubbed: “End Child Married Now,” an initiative of the organisation in partnership with the Volta Regional Directorate of the Department of Gender.
It was launched at the Agotime-Ziope District of the Volta region and sought to mobilise major stakeholders and solicit their support for implementation and comprehensive actions tailored at ending child marriage in the district.
The Officer said the district was chosen for the programme because it had more vulnerable children compared to other districts in the region based on a survey conducted by organisation.
The total wellbeing of the children was what we sought at the end of the project, he said, disclosing that the project would be executed within a period of 10 years.
He said everyone had a responsibility to protect the rights of children and ensure that they had a brighter future, and that the campaign was their contribution to the ongoing global one to end child marriage.
The organisation would continue to partner with government, the church, other faith and development organisations, civil society organisations, he said, to bring hope and fulfilment, transformational and holistic development to all children, especially the most vulnerable and their families.
Mr Tseganu said though both boys and girls were affected by child marriage, girls were most affected by the practice and had therefore entreated stakeholders to do more in protecting the girl child.
The Child Protection Officer said Global statistics according to data released by UNICEF in 2014 indicated that each year, 15 million girls married before their 18th birthday.
He added that a breakdown revealed that each day 41,000 girls got married, every minute 28 girls got married, and every two seconds a girl got married.
In Ghana, on the average, the percentage of girls between the ages of 20 and 24 years who were married or in the union before the age of 18, nationally was 21 per cent, he added.
Madam Thywill Eyra Kpe, Volta Regional Director, Department of Gender urged all with the interest of children at heart to support the call to end child marriage now.
She said issues of children must be paramount to every citizen and every necessary and conscious effort must be made to ensure their holistic development as they were the future leaders of the country
Madam Kpe underscored the need for a comprehensive and pragmatic mechanisms to end child marriage, saying if nothing was done to address the problem the future of the country would be in jeopardy.
The Director said her outfit was committed and determined to end child marriage in the Region and that several programmes were currently ongoing to that effect and called for support from all including traditional and religious authorities.
Madam Kpe described the project as good news as it aimed to support what her outfit had been doing to end child marriage and bring positive changes into lives of children in the Region.
She said the Region currently had 24. 3 per cent of child marriage and that this was a worrying situation and urged various stakeholders to help curtail the problem.
The programme was used to inaugurate the District’s Child Protection Committee (DCPC) with a responsibility to protect the rights of children and ensure their wellbeing.
Source: Ghana News Agency