Zonta Club challenges government and others to help end child marriage

By Eunice Hilda Ampomah, GNA

Accra, March 11, GNA - The Zonta Club of Accra, a charitable and service group has marked its 50th anniversary celebration focusing on raising funds to advocate against child marriage and save victims from the injustice.

The celebration held in Accra on the theme, “Safeguarding the Rights of the voiceless Woman and Girl” was aligned with Zonta International, the Club’s parent organisation’s biennial goal of ending child marriage.

Mrs Florence Ohene-Kyei, President of the Club addressing members of the group at the celebration called on all and sundry to join forces to stand against child marriage.

She said: “Ama is an 11-year old girl, a child, mothering a set of twins. She is married to a 50-year old man who already has three wives. Ama at 11 is not only a mother, but a wife and help to her three rivals. This is a true story.

“The question I keep asking is why the blatant disregard of laws on marriage is allowed in our modern day today. It hurts our future generation and girls in Ama’s situation face social, economic, psychological and physiological challenges that consign them to a life of poverty and violence.”

She said advocacy against child marriage started in earnest in the 1990s, however, competing issues like climate change and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals overshadowed issues of child marriage in present day. 

“Our society has turned a blind eye to this situation and we have done so because these practices are steeped in culture and religion. Yes they may be steeped in culture and religion, but so were widowhood rites, female genital mutilation, the killing of twins and many more. It took the courage of individuals, groups, civil society organizations, traditional leaders, the legislature etc. to abolish these practices,” Mrs Ohene-Kyei said.

She called on government, the legislature, judiciary, civil society, and traditional leaders to build a society that protected the human rights of every Ghanaian woman and girl from injustices including; forced marriages that rendered them, wives and mothers at tender agers and a grandmother, possibly by the time they turned 30.

“We should ensure she has the opportunity to go to school, acquire a skill that can guarantee her economic independence and also fall in love and choose who she wants to marry,” she said.

Madam Stephanie S. Sullivan, the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, commended the Club for its commitment towards advancing gender equality and leadership in empowering women.

Placing emphasis on the words of Mrs Melania Trump, the First Lady of the US, when she visited Ghana in October 2018, she said: “We must continue to fight injustice in all its forms, in whatever scale or shape it takes in our lives. Together, we must declare that the era of allowing the brutality against women and children is over, while affirming that the time for empowering around the world is now.

“For wherever women are diminished, the entire world is diminished with them. However, wherever women are empowered, towns and villages, schools and economies, are empowered, and together we are all made stronger with them.

We must begin now to challenge old fears, fight long-held prejudices and stand up against evil and injustice wherever it may be.”

GNA

Read Full Story