Ms Laadi Ayii Ayamba, Member of Parliament (MP) for Pusiga, has called for enforcement of legislation against forced early marriages.
She kicked against traditional and cultural practices that force families to push their young girls into early marriages, explaining that they deprived the girls of growing naturally into adulthood.
Ms Ayamba made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra, after making a statement on ‘the rise of forced early marriages’, on the floor of Parliament.
“No cultural law surpasses the constitution,” Ms Ayamba said, and expressed the need for the enforcement of provisions in the 1992 Constitution and other national legislations to protect girls in Ghana against the practice, which she described as evil.
Quoting the 1992 Constitution, the MP defined a child as”: Person below…18 years.”
She attributed the practice of forced early marriages to poverty, betrothal, inadequate schools, ignorance and lack of role models in some communities.
Ms Ayamba expressed regret that there was high rate of teenage pregnancy in some parts of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions, whilst girls as young as 12 to 16 years were made to marry.
She called on colleague MPs to step up advocacy against such marriages and come out with packages to ensure the retention of girls in school.
“Traditional chiefs, elders, Parent Teacher Associations, School Management Committees, the National Disaster Management Organisation should also be part of the campaign against forced early marriages,” the MP said.
She lamented that “these girls are normally neither physically nor emotionally ready to become wives or mothers, so they stand a greater risk of experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and child birth, sometimes leading to death.
“There is also the need to provide relevant economic support, education and action against the perpetrators,” Ms Ayamba said.
GNA