President John Dramani Mahama said on Wednesday that he would commit murder and go to prison if anybody attempted to marry off his und...
said on Wednesday that he would
commit murder and go to prison if
anybody attempted to marry off his
underage daughter.
The President was condemning the
phenomenon of child marriages in
Ghana.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of
the 7th Africa Conference on Sexual
and Healthy Right in Accra
Wednesday, the President said it was
unfortunate that such a practice
continued to thrive in Africa.
He said since there was the tendency
for relatives to keep quiet when their
underage children were married off,
systems must be put in place that
alert the authorities for action to be
taken.
President Mahama said:“There is a
culture of silence amongst relatives;
often when a child is withdrawn from
school or married off into a force
marriage, we need to establish
systems that alert the authorities.
“...School authorities must watch
out. If a girl stops coming to school,
ring the alarm bells, try and find out
where the child is and alert the
authorities as early as possible so
that we can prevent them from being
married off,” he stated.
He continued: “I, even as a man
won’t want to marry a woman I don’t
love not to talk about a woman. Why
should you be forced to marry
somebody you have no affection for,
and especially a child. If my daughter
is below 18 and somebody attempted
to marry her off, I probably will be in
prison; I will commit murder”.
Ghana has one of the highest child
marriage prevalence rates in the
world. About one out of four girls
believe to marry before their 18th
birthday.
The Ghana Demographic Health
Survey in 2008 indicated that about
25% of women aged 20-24 were
married or were in union before age
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