The Upper West Regional Department of Children of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, has called for constitutional amendment to raise the legal marriage age from 18 to 22 years.
The Department appealed to state authorities to consider amending relevant portions of the country’s constitution for upward adjustment of the current legal marriage age for adequate protection of the rights of the Ghanaian children.
Head of Department of Children in Upper West, Madam Matilda Chireh, made the call in Wa during the celebration of the 2019 African Union Day of the Child in Wa.
The Department in partnership with Plan International joined the rest of African nations to celebrate the day, which was on the theme: “Humanitarians action in Africa child rights first”.
The Day is observed in honour of thousands of black African children who suffered brutalities in 1976 during a protest match on the streets of Soweto, South Africa, against inferior quality of education offered them.
The children protesters had demanded to be taught in their own languages but security personnel shot, killed and injured thousands of the young children on 16th June, 1976.
Madam Chireh said though Ghana was not under any humanitarian crisis, many Ghanaian children were engaged in labour, teenage pregnancy and sexual exploitation.
Others are also seen at lorry parks selling water and other items while some parents give out their teenage girls for marriage and boys offered as cowboys due to abject poverty.
“If the children of Ghana would demonstrate today, it would either be against the right to education, child labour or child marriage,” she said.
