According to data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), about 80,000 girls in Ghana between the ages of 12 and 17 are already married or cohabitating with men.
Nearly 26,000 of them, according to the report, are girls in junior high school, between the ages of 12 and 14.
The North East (13.0%), Savannah (10.9%), and Northern (10.6%) all have rates that are higher than twice the national average (4.0%) for the percentage of girls in union.
In addition, 244,731 girls between the ages of 6 and 14 have never attended school at all despite universal basic education being free and required.
The Northern Region has the highest percentage of girls who have never attended school (73,516), followed by the Savannah (27,930) and North East (22,857) regions.
With Savannah leading all regions with 40.2%, the North East Region (29.3%), and the Northern Region (28.5%), these three regions also have the greatest percentage of girls who are not currently attending school (or have never attended or have attended in the past).
The information is based on the 2021 Population and Housing Census and is presented on the same day that the world celebrates International Day of the Girl Child.
The purpose of the day is to draw attention to issues including early marriage, limited access to opportunities for education, and other issues that impede young girls from realizing their full potential.
Kofi Asare, the executive director of Africa Education Watch, claims that the data is sufficient evidence that efforts to prevent child marriage must be stepped up.
“On International Day of the Girl 2022, we’ll have discussions on the need to strengthen the reporting and the response system of the state to child marriage.
“When child marriage issues happen, parents despise the girls, they abandon them because they have refused to accede to marriages that would have benefited the family,” he said.
