By Peter Quao Adattor
of the Girl
Child marriage is prohibited in Ghana under the constitution and by law. According to the 1992 constitution, any person under the age of 18 is a child and can therefore not marry or be married off.
However, the practice prevailed to date and appears to be worsening in some parts of the country especially the northern sector where child married in some cases are considered as a custom.
Ahead of the 10th anniversary of the world day against child marriage, the National Statistical Service has come out with some staggering figures about the menace as captured in the 2021 national housing and population census.
According to the report, 79,733 girls in Ghana aged 12 to 17 have been in union i.e. married or
living together with men nationally.
Out of this number, 25,999 are girls of Junior High School going age-12 to 14 years.
The regions with the highest percentage of girls ever in union are North East with 13.0 per cent followed by Savannah with 10.9 per cent while Northern region scored 10.6 per cent, all with rates more than twice the
national average of 4.0 per cent.
The report also indicated that in spite of a free and compulsory universal basic education policy, almost a quarter of a million, thus 244,731, girls aged between 6 and 14 years have never attended school at all.
Three out of every 10 of these girls are in the Northern Region, which has the highest number of 73,516 girls who have never attended school followed by the Savannah region, 27,930 and North East region with 22,857 girls.
The three regions again have the highest percent of girls currently not attending school, never attended or attended in the past, with Savannah leading with 40.2 per cent, North East 29.3 per cent and the
Northern Region 28.5 per cent.
The national figure is 7.8 per cent, representing 285,271 girls aged 6 to 14 years that are not attending school.
Three out of every four girls, thus 75.8 per cent aged 6 to 14 years who are not attending school are living in rural areas.
Further, 99,150 girls under 15 years are engaged in economic activity with nearly half of them or 49.7 per cent are out of school.
22,647 of the girls engaged in economic activity are in the Northern representing 49.9 per cent, Oti region has 17,694, and North East region followed with 9,153 girls in economic activity.
Check the full report
