The petition is to demand for
urgent action to safeguard the lives and future of victims of child marriage
and teenage mothers in the region.
“We regret to note that teenage
pregnancy and teenage motherhood has denied many girls their health, education
and childhood”, the network lamented and added that approximately, three out of
10 girls in the region were teenage mothers according to reports from the Ghana
Health Service (GHS).
The petition which was developed
after a confidence and capacity building training organized by CDA in
partnership with STAR Ghana under the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion
Programme Support was jointly signed by Ubeda Bawa, Network Spokes Person and
Mercy Dakogri, Project Officer for CDA’s “Let Girls Learn, End Child Marriage”
project.
The petition noted that when
families, communities and the state failed in their duty to protect the poor
girl, she falls as prey to bad men and boys which manifested in the high
incidence of teenage mothers and child marriages.
The petition demanded government
to immediately consider setting-up more and resourcing existing vocational and
skills training centres to absorb and cater for the skills needs of the thousands of girls who dropped
out of school every term due to teenage pregnancy, child marriage and other
related causes.
It also called on government to
immediately put in place effective mechanisms to ensure timely investigations
and prosecution of all cases of defilement and ensure that victims of such acts
were protected and safeguarded.
The petition wondered why the
minimum age of consensual sex should be 16 years and that of marriage should be
18 years and therefore called on the government to expedite action to reconcile
the age of marriage and consensual sex.
The petition further called on
the government to immediately develop a policy and legislation that prohibited
all public and private institutions from dismissing, suspending, withdrawing
and discriminating in any form against girls and young women during pregnancy.
The petition observed that many schools in
Ghana disapproved of providing family planning education and services to girls
on grounds that it was at variance with their policy, stressing that this
inconsistencies in implementation of policies turned to deny girls the need of
sexuality education that would enable them prevent pregnancies.
It therefore called on government
to ensure that the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Health
were jointly committed to the implementation of the adolescent sexual and
reproductive health in schools.
The petition called on the
President to champion the campaign of a ‘Child Marriage Free Ghana’ where all
girls could enjoy equal rights and opportunities and protected by the state
from all forms of gender based violence.
Plans to establish oil processing
mills in Nabdam District
Zanlerigu, Dec. 02, – As part of measures to halt seasonal
migration of youth to southern parts of the country in search for jobs, the
Nabdam District Assembly is to establish three processing mills in the area to
engage more of the active human resource.
The three processing mills would
include; sheabutter, groundnuts and soya when fully implemented and would be in
fulfilment of government’s promise of establishing a factory each in all
districts of the country.
Mrs Agnes Anamoo, Nabdam District
Chief Executive announced this on the occasion of the 33rd Farmers Day
celebration held at Zanlerigu, a farming community in the district.
According to Mrs Anamoo, the
factories will “promote rapid industrialisation of the district and create job
opportunities and wealth for all”
This year’s celebration of the
Farmers Day was on the theme “Farming for food and jobs”. It is a day set aside
to honour gallant farmers and fishermen in recognition of their untiring
efforts for continuously feeding the country.
Mrs Anamoo stated that the
district received a total of 5225 bags of assorted chemical fertilizers under
government’s “Planting for food and jobs” programme. Out of this number, 3114
bags were disbursed to 697 farmers during the farming season, while 2111 bags
are currently in stock to cater for those farmers who would be going into dry
season farming.
“I wish to use this opportunity
to entreat you all to take advantage of the availability of these inputs to go
into dry season gardening and those of you who are already into it to upscale
your farming” she admonished.
The Nabdam district assembly has
awarded for rehabilitation, the Kongo-Avareme dam which got broken during the
rainy season. “The contractor has since been on site and is expected to
complete by the end of this month” she stated.
This year’s celebration coincided
with World Aids Day which is commemorated on 1st of December each year.
Mrs. Anamoo bemoaned the
increasing spate of HIV/AIDS cases recorded in the district this year adding,
“Last year, 52 cases were recorded in our health facilities. This year, the
number has increased to 56 when the year has not ended”
Acting Nabdam District Director
of Agriculture, Mr Iddi Mahamadu speaking exclusively to Ghana News Agency
appealed to government to consider employing more extension officers to help
boost the agricultural sector in the area. “We have eight extension officers
and if we have 21 officers, I think it will do”
Mr Iddi revealed that more than
60 percent of inputs distributed under the planting for food and jobs policy
had been recovered and said the lack of logistics including; means of
transportation was another sector hampering agricultural production in the
district. “The only good means of transport is the motorbike which I am using.
Most of our motorbikes are worn-out and the effect is that, we cannot reach all
the farmers and that is how it is affecting the delivery”, he added.
Mr Ontoyen Denis emerged the
District best farmer. For his prize, he took home a tricycle, radio set, half
piece of wax print, a pair of Wellington boots, a bar of key shop, three
cutlasses, two bags of compound fertilizers, two knapsack sprayers and a
certificate.
GNA
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