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Vigrous education reduces child marriages in the Zongos – Ashiaman Zongo Chief
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.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) will undertake a nationwide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination exercise in schools from October to December 2026 to protect eligible girls against cervical cancer and other HPV related diseases.
The exercise, organised in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and its partners through the School Health Education Programme (SHEP), will be conducted in two rounds.
The first round is scheduled for October 19 to 23, 2026, while the second will take place from November 30 to December 4, 2026.
In a press release dated October 19, the GHS explained that health workers would visit schools across the country to vaccinate eligible girls aged 9 to 14 who have not yet received the HPV vaccine.
The exercise forms part of efforts to raise awareness about the routine HPV vaccine, increase vaccination uptake and strengthen the country’s routine immunisation programme.
The GHS has called on school authorities, parents, guardians, teachers and community leaders to cooperate with health teams to ensure the successful implementation of the exercise.
The Service reaffirmed its commitment to protecting the health and well-being of Ghanaians, particularly children, through vaccination and other public health interventions.
By: Jacob Aggrey
Vice President Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang has held high-level discussions with organisers of the 2026 Global South Academic Forum in Shanghai, seeking to draw lessons from China’s acclaimed rural revitalisation and poverty reduction drive.
The meeting, led by the Forum Chair, Professor Lu Xinyu, explored practical areas of cooperation and knowledge exchange between Ghana and China, with focus on community-driven development, fisheries and aquaculture, local governance, sports initiatives, and infrastructure development.
According to officials, the engagement is part of a broader effort by the Ghanaian government to study tested development models that can be adapted to the local context to promote inclusive growth, empower local communities, and improve livelihoods across the country.
China’s success in lifting over 800 million people out of poverty through targeted rural policies, investment in agriculture and local infrastructure has become a global reference point for developing nations.
The Vice President’s team says insights from the Forum will help inform policy direction, particularly in strengthening decentralised governance, boosting the fisheries and aquaculture sector, and investing in community-level infrastructure and youth sports development.
Professor Opoku-Agyemang is expected to continue engagements with academic and development institutions while in China.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
