Vigorous education has led to drastic reduction of child marriages in the Zongos, Alhaji Ibrahim Salisu Sofo Yaro, Ashaiman Municipal Zongo Chief has said.

According to him, this practice was prevalent in the Muslim communities but through educational programmes, parents no longer saw the need to engage their daughters in child marriage. 

Despite this feat, the zongo chief said they were not resting on their oars and would start massive education on the need to end child marriages.

He, however, said what had been a challenge to the project was financial constraint and, therefore, appealed to well-meaning people to come on board to support the initiative. 

He said constant education on the subject was key because if the society wanted the best out of its women, it was about time it stopped marrying them off at a tender age.

Alhaji Yaro said people should also stop believing in the misconception that when a woman attained a higher education, she might not get a husband. 

He gave the admonishment in an interview with The Spectator on Tuesday as a leader and a parent to drum home the negative impact the practice on society.

He said children should not be rushed into marriage because it placed a huge burden on them.

He questioned how a child could take care of another child and said that it resulted in both children (mother and child) being denied quality life which in the long round could affect their physical and mental health.

The Municipal Zongo Chief said what was more disheartening was that the girls were sometimes married off to men who were three times or more of their ages.

He said it was common to hear people hide behind economic issues to justify why they had to give away their girls in marriage which was unfortunate. 

He said the point such parents kept missing was that if the girls were more educated they could be in better position to address the economic challenges of those parents.

He observed that when professionals from various fields were being mentioned, the Zongo Community was constrained and so there was the need to break away from that unfortunate norm.

He said it was about time people upheld the belief of Islam that early and forced marriage violated human rights and sanctity of marriage. 

Alhaji Yaro said he had in his own small way educated some parents to desist from the act and successfully achieved his objective of getting more girls in school. 

He said if the community got the neccessary support it could do better to nib the trend of child marriage in the bud.

From Dzifa Tetteh Tay, Ashaiman.