Reports from UNICEF has described Child marriage as a global phenomenon that must be recognised as a human rights violation.
Though the practice remains widespread, there has been progress in reducing it over the last three decades but has been uneven across regions in the country.
Among other drivers of child marriage in Ghana, poverty is the major cause because parents marry off their girl child in exchange of financial payments such as bride wealth or to reduce the cost of caring.
Given the significant role poverty and economic vulnerability of households play in maintaining child marriage, social protection programmes can help mitigate the social and economic drivers of child marriage.
It is against this backdrop that the Child Marriage Unit of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection with support from UNICEF Ghana has organised a one-day Validation meeting on Social Protection and Child Marriage Study on Tuesday 22nd October 2024 in Accra.
The meeting sought to review the study’s methodology, data, and analysis for accuracy and validate the relevance of it findings in the context of the social protection frameworks.
It was also to engage the steering committee members and stakeholders in the validation process to build a consensus and ownership of the study’s outcome.
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Afisah Zakariah speaking through the Head of Child Marriage Unit, Madam Safia Tamimu stated that the call to end child marriage is involved in human rights arguments on the deadly effects of the practice.
According to her, the Ministry and UNICEF have adopted a system-strengthening approach to address the multidimensional and monetary poverty and root causes of Gender-based violence issues which include child marriage through the LEAP cash transfer programme and the Integrated Social Service (ISS) initiatives which are working effectively.
She called on all to take the meeting seriously because the country needs to accelerate action to end child early and forced marriage by 2030.
In a remark, the Social Policy Specialist from UNICEF Ghana, Madam Christiana Gbedema, tasked the participants to add inputs, experience, share knowledge and expertise to make the meeting a successful one.
The study examines how the various social protection interventions (LEAP, ISS) can contribute to reducing child marriage as part of strategies under the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to end child marriage.