President John Dramani Mahama went a little over the top when commenting on the high rate of child marriages that exists in the country- especially in the Northern parts.
The President noted that an entire system is in place to protect perpetrators of such acts, and that if it is to stop, we must all work together to tackle it.
The President was speaking at the 7th Africa Conference on S*xual and Healthy Right in Accra on Wednesday.
Speaking on the menace the practice poses, the President noted that as a father himself, he would be willing to commit murder and be jailed if anyone attempted to carry out a similar act on his children.
“If my daughter is below 18 and somebody attempted to marry her off, I probably will be in prison; I will commit murder”. He emphatically stated.
“I, even as a man won’t want to marry a woman I don’t love, not to talk about a woman.
“Why should you be forced to marry somebody you have no affection for, and especially a child?” He quizzed.
Earlier in his speech, the President condemned the all too frequent habit in such communities for the perpetrators to be shielded.
“There is a culture of silence amongst relatives; often when a child is withdrawn from school or married off into a force marriage, we need to establish systems that alert the authorities.
“…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 quickly as possible so that we can prevent them from being married off,”
So, the President is showing all the right amount of passion in speaking about this issue, but then speaking has never been a problem for him. Action needs to follow this proclamation.

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