Editorial (Daily Searchlight of Monday, 25th July,, 2022)
Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) has launched Child Marriage-Free Community Alert Campaign (CM-FCAC) to mobilize support to end forced and early child marriages in the Northern Region.
The campaign, being implemented with funding support from the UNFPA, also seeks to create awareness about the consequences of child marriage and how communities could join forces to end the practice.
Mr Adam Azabre Abugbila, PPAG Projects Coordinator, Northern Zone, who gave details of the campaign during its launch at Katariga in the Sagnarigu Municipality, said child marriage was gradually becoming a major obstacle to sustainable development due to its impact on young girls and communities.
He noted that “This obstacle does not only negatively make their lives difficult but also continue to perpetuate cycles of poverty, low social status, illiteracy and poor adult lives.”
He noted that “To address child marriage and its multifaceted causes such as poverty, gender inequality and discrimination, unhealthy social norms and cultural practices amongst others in communities, a multi-sectoral action is required, and we are contributing to this through the CM – FCAC.”
The Daily Searchlight is of the firm belief that the posture by the State with regard to child marriages is regretful, lazy and lackadaisical.
We believe that the State is empowered to step in strongly to end the practice, which endanger young lives, particularly the female.
We believe that when it comes to such things as the protection of the rights of children, the State should demonstrate an uncompromising attitude, and deploy all force and coercion necessary to achieve results.
Even though some of these abuses can be traced to religion and tradition, we believe that where tradition and religion come up against basic and fundamental rights, it is the job of the State to uphold the rights.
It is also unhealthy for the institutional reputation of Ghana, for us to allow the image to be created where international agencies has to step in to try to stop abuses we could have stopped ourselves. And indeed, which we are uniquely empowered to stop.
We commend the PPAG for their effort, and we call on the government of Ghana to do the needful and stop allowing our image to be trashed on the international circuit.
(This article was first published in the column EDITORIAL of the Daily Searchlight of Monday, 25th July,, 2022. The Daily Searchlight appears on the newsstands of Ghana every working day and PDF versions are available for sale online twenty-four hours a day all day throughout the world on www.ghananewsstand.com).
