Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 7th Africa Conference on Sexual and Healthy Right in Accra on Wednesday, the president urged all and sundry, particularly teachers, to be on the look-out and report such acts of child marriage.
"There's a culture of silence among relatives often when a child is withdrawn from school or a child is married off into a forced marriage. And we need to establish systems that alert the authorities," he stated.
"...That is the kind of action we must take. School authorities must watch out. If a girl stops coming to school, ring the alarm bells, try and find out where the child is and alert the authorities as early as possible so that we can prevent them from being married off,” he said.
“Why should you be forced to marry somebody you have no affection for, and especially a child. If my daughter is below 18 and somebody attempted to marry her off, I probably will be in prison; I will commit murder," the president added.
Ghana has one of the highest child marriage prevalence rates in the world.
The Ghana Demographic and Health Survey in 2008 indicated that about 25 per cent of women aged between 20 and 24 years were married or were in union before age 18.
The Upper East Region has the highest rate of forced marriages in the country which is at 50 per cent followed by the Upper West Region with 39 per cent while the Greater Accra Region has the least which is 11 per cent.
Again, the percentages of girls married before the age of 18 showed the Upper East Region leading with 39.2 per cent; Upper West Region 36.3 and Greater Accra had 11 per cent.
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