Stakeholders in the Upper West Region have held a Regional Multi-Stakeholder forum to fashion out strategies towards ending child marriage which has become a menace in the area.

Available statistics from the 2011 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICs) and the Ghana Demographic Health Survey Report 2008 put the region second highest with 39 per cent child marriage prevalence rate in Ghana.

The Community Development Alliance (CDA) with support from UNICEF, organised the forum which was on the theme: “Accelerating Efforts to End Child Marriage in the Upper West Region”.

Members of the Regional House of Chiefs, the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), Civil Society Organisations, Departments of Women and Children, Ghana Education Service, Ghana Health Service, the police, the Judiciary and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) attended the forum.

Mr. Kanton Salifu Issifu, Executive Director of CDA said child and forced marriages occurred when one or both of the spouses in a marriage were under the acceptable legal age of marriage, which is 18 years in the case of Ghana.

He said the problem was compounded by a deficiency of factors including high parental neglect and irresponsibility, poverty and extreme vulnerability of families, entrenched social and cultural norms, low preventive action by parents and the weak political will of government to enforce existing laws and legislations among others.

Mr. Issifu said it was based on those challenges that the CDA in partnership with UNICEF embarked on the implementation of evidence based community interventions to impart knowledge, change perceptions and local norms, and ultimately influence local communities to abandon the practice of child marriages in the local communities.

He said barely six months of implementing the pilot project, some positive outcomes were observed citing the declaration to end all forms of child marriage by the Lambussie Traditional Council.

The Regional Multi-stakeholder forum, he noted provided them with the opportunity to renew their commitment, increase the momentum and strengthen partnerships and collaborations with key government institutions leading to a strengthened regional response towards eliminating child marriages.

Dr. Musheibu Mohammed Alfa, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister thanked CDA and UNICEF for taking up the issue and advocating for the way forward in the prevention of early marriages in the region.

He said the region, with the second highest marriage prevalence rate, called for the institutionalization of measures to reduce the rising incidence.

The Deputy Regional Minister noted that early marriages did not only deny the girl-child educational opportunities and skills development but also got the victims pregnant before they were physically matured, resulting in prenatal difficulties such as fistula, malnutrition, hemorrhage and high maternal deaths.

Dr. Alfa said the worst affected in the region included Lambussie-Karni, Daffiama-Bussie-Issa, Wa West and East, Sissala West and East, as well as Jirapa Districts confirming the estimation that girls in rural areas were three times likely to be married out as compared to their colleagues in urban areas.

He said the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in 2008; indicated 47 per cent of girls with no education were more likely to marry before their 18th birthday as compared to 15 per cent of girls who attended secondary school, an indication that the more educated the girl-child the less likely she would be involved in child marriage.

The Deputy Regional Minister said sometimes unfortunate circumstances such as teenage pregnancy and poverty also triggered early marriages, and appealed to the public to stop the stigmatization of pregnant teenage girls but rather create opportunities for them to recover after going through childbirth and not seal their faith in marriage.

Dr. Alfa said government had rolled out programmes such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP), the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) and the Rural Enterprises Programme among others, to reduce poverty in rural communities.