ActionAid Ghana has called for urgent collective action to end child marriage in Ghana, a phenomenon that persists despite interventions. According to UNICEF, an estimated 640 million girls and women alive today were married in childhood, with nearly half living in South Asia and 20% in sub-Saharan Africa.
The decline in child marriage is not occurring fast enough to reach the SDG target of eliminating the practice by 2030, with progress needing to be nearly 20 times faster. In 2015, global leaders included a target to end child marriage under the SDG, and African leaders have also shown commitment to ending the practice.
ActionAid Ghana hosted a regional conference to deliberate on the root causes of child marriage and outline strategies to reduce the menace. Available statistics reveal that child marriage among girls is highest in West and Central Africa, with nearly 4 in 10 young women married before age 18.
Globally, an estimated 12 million girls are married before the age of 18 every year, with over 120 million girls expected to marry by the end of this decade if efforts are not intensified. Ghana has taken deliberate actions to combat child marriage, including the launch of an Ending Child Marriage Campaign in 2014 and the development of policy documents.
ActionAid Ghana has championed the campaign for zero child marriage, dedicating resources and expertise over the past three decades to empower girls and communities. The organization emphasizes the importance of collaboration and partnership in achieving sustainable development and ending child marriage, with the conference attended by stakeholders from government institutions, NGOs, rights protection agencies, survivors, and teenage mothers.
