"Let's End Early Child Marriage - Ellen White

The Techiman South Municipal Girls Child Education Officer, Madam Ellen White has urged parents to desist from given out their girl child to early marriage.

She said the goal of her outfit is to increase the literacy rate among girls in the country but early child marriage has made that goal very difficult to be achieved.

Although she failed to give out specific figures concerning child marriage but her outfit has been receiving a lot of complaints about this uncultured act which is against the laws governing the country hence the need to sensitized the implications of early child marriage in the Techiman Municipality and the country at large.

Mad. Ellen White voiced out that, early child marriage has proven to be a stumbling block to the development of the country in respect to the Sustainable Development Goal.

"The Sustainable Development Goal 1 talks about eradicating poverty, but children forced into early marriages are probably school dropout with no skills to equip them for the job market"

"It becomes very difficult for such girls to contribute to the social and economic growth of both their families and the country but they rather become a burden which increases the dependant ratio in the country," Mad. Ellen White said.

She also touched on the fact that these girls are very vulnerable to sexual and domestic abuse at large.

She advised parents who usually usher their girl-child into marriage as a result of pregnancy to exercise patience because government's Sustainable Development Goal 4 seeks to provide a life longing learning opportunity for both girls and boys hence the introduction of the re-entry policy.

She further said her outfit of the Girl Child Unit of the Ghana Education Service is in partnership with the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) and Social Welfare to ensure that early child marriage becomes a thing of the past in Ghana.

Bono East Region