The chief of Igbo community in Ghana, Dr. Eze Chukwudi Ihenetu, has made a clarion call to African parents and leaders to prioritise girl-child education as a catalyst to harness hidden potentials in the girl child for a sustainable future and end the counterproductive child marriage.
He emphasised that investing in girl-child education yields long-term benefits for communities and nations as a whole, because it has the potency to empower girls to make informed decisions about their future prospects.
Touching on the need for promoting girl-child education, the traditional leader indicated that educated girls significantly contribute their quota to the workforce; which, in effect, stimulates economic growth and development.
Dr. Eze Ihenetu reiterated that educated girls contribute to community development and act as agents of change who positively impact their nations by helping to break the poverty cycles.
“It is very important for every African country to adopt strategies that would help increase the awareness of promoting girl-child education as a means of ensuring equal access to quality education, eliminating barriers which hinder the education of a girl child,” he reiterated.
He observed that if girl-child education is not prioritised in every corner of Africa, girl-child marriage would remain a cankerworm in the African continent.
Dr. Eze Ihenetu noted that instituting legal frameworks to halt the menace of child marriage would help in eliminating the phenomenon of girl-child marriage in Africa.
“Strengthening and enforcing laws that prohibit child marriage and also ensuring penalties for non-compliance would serve as a legal framework to stop the practice of girl child marriage in Africa,” he added.
The Igbo leader in Ghana observed many health challenges associated with early child marriage that often come with reproductive health issues and infections because the girl child is not mature enough for sexual activities.
“Trauma, stress, anxiety and depression are some forms of mental health concerns associated with child marriages due to their forceful nature on the girl to marry an old man who is equal to his father’s or grandfather’s age,” he bemoaned.
Touching on the risk of maternal mortality, he termed it a dangerous factor to the girl child who becomes pregnant due to early marriage and, as a result, would be at a higher risk of death either during childbirth or shortly after because her womb is not developed.
According to him, the afore-mentioned health factors are often about social, economic and cultural factors, which serve as a wake-up call to critically address girl-child marriage comprehensively.
The post Prioritise girl child education to curb child marriages -Igbo leader appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.
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