Counselors advocate policy to stop child marriage

The Guidance and Counseling Post Diploma Sandwich Students, Practicum II Group Six of University of Education, Winneba have appealed to the government to put in place measures to stop thousands of girls being married off.

The students stated this in a paper delivered by Mr. Reindorf Asare Quansah at a symposium they organized at Winneba on the consequences of forced (child) marriage.

It was on the theme “Force Marriage and its implications.”

They stated that a 2007 World Health Organization (WHO) survey showed that girls who married young were at a higher risk of dying during childbirth, having their child die before its first birthday, contracting AIDS and becoming a victim of domestic violence.

According to the group a research they conducted revealed that in 2010, 277,000 women aged 20-24 were married before age 18 and if present trends continue, 407,000 of the young girls born between 2005 and 2010 would be married before age 18 by 2030.

The students said forced child marriage stood in direct conflict with the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which includes promoting education, women’s empowerment, reducing poverty, maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS rates.

They said the research showed an increase of 47 per cent from the 2010 estimated marriage girls, which is compounded by high fertility and low mortality and this was a clear negative correlation between a country’s rate of forced child marriage and its Human Development Index (HDI) ranking.

They said ending child marriage required strategies for girls’ empowerment, social and cultural norms change, legal reform and policy action by the government else child brides were more likely to live in poverty and raise children in poverty.