Child Protection Advocacy Manager at World Vision Ghana, Gregory Dery, has described as disgraceful the budget provided to Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to fight early child marriages.
According to him, though child marriage is dropping, he believes it is not at the expected rate, attributing lack of resources in the secretariat as reason.
“Statistics show that child marriage is dropping but not reducing at a rate expected. When you pick the Ghana Demographic Survey previous one and then that of 2014, you will realise that it has dropped to 21%. If you pick statistics that come from UNICEF and partners, 2011, you see that we were recording about 28% and the last mixed, it has dropped to 19%.“
“So if you pick both numbers, you realise it is dropping and it means something positive is happening but statistically we are looking at the rate of drop, how significant is that drop?” he explained.
Mr Dery explained further that, statistics show that if the nation does not act fast, by 2050, the country should not be surprised to record very high cases of early child marriage.
On how to avert such predictions, he added that, ” it means that we must look at the programme we are doing, is it impactful enough? As Ghana tries to fight early child marriage; they must also say what government is not doing right, and that is the insufficient money given to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.”
Mr Deru expressed disappointment that President Nana Akufo-Addo was quick to launch a campaign and secretariat, but he failed to ensure proper resourcing to champion the course.
He also made mention of the Children’s Act, which Mr Dery believes has not led to enough, if not any, prosecution so far.
