Today’s girl, our future: Zonta Club commemorates international day of girl child

The most startling information I chanced on this week, as the world commemorated the International Day of the Girl Child on October 11, came from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

According to the GSS, almost 80,000 girls in this beloved country between the ages of 12 and 17 are already married or living with a man. It is inconceivable that all the numerous talk about child marriage being a violation of child rights does not prick our conscience, more so to take the necessary action to stop it.

By this information from GSS therefore, these 80,000 girls in our communities would have had very little formal education or perhaps none at all, to arm them for their future. They would have to live with ignorance if luck is not on their side.

Such lost opportunity of education and knowledge for those potential future mothers, leaders and decision makers due to the violations of their rights are happening under our watch and we are watching on. Cries by activists have fallen on deaf ears.

Girl child violence

Sadly, it is not only child marriages that are impinging on the future prosperity of girls. The regrettable violations with impunities including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), rape, teenage pregnancies are all rife and robbing our girls of their future.

Families look on and in some cases, are active accomplices but because the relative laws of the land do not bite, no amount of advocacy by concerned groups are seeing the needed actions or impacts.

One must admit that teenage pregnancies that in the past stalled girls’ education are gradually being reversed by the Ghana Education Service (GES). The service has taken bold steps to get teenage mothers back into the classroom to continue with their education without shame or regret. Much however needs to be done.

Attention

The International Day of the Girl Child which the world celebrated on October 11 seeks to draw the attention of governments, organisations and individuals to the vulnerability of girls in our communities. There is therefore a call for a paradigm shift that will restore those rights, whether in education, health, traditional and religious beliefs and which are stalling the progressive future of girls.

This year’s commemoration marks the 10th anniversary of the international day and the apt theme adopted by the United Nations: “Our time is now – our rights our future” provides the world a call for action.

To commemorate the day, the Zonta Club of Accra, an organisation with a focused passion on the rights of women and girls and consistently advocating equal rights to education, health and a stop to child marriage and gender-based violence, organised a workshop in conjunction with the Roman Ridge School in Accra.

The workshop was to draw the minds of the female students in the school and girls everywhere to the opportunities available in their world today as well as the challenges they were likely to face and how to circumvent for the betterment of their future.

On the theme, “Today’s girl, our future – challenges and opportunities”, the resource person, Professor Afua Hesse, President of the Accra College of Medicine and first female paediatric surgeon in Ghana, told the girls that there was nothing under the sun which was impossible.

As young girls with the world ahead of them, she advised them to pursue their desired vision. She cautioned them that shortcuts in life would not take them anywhere and that they should pursue excellence as their school motto states.

She counselled them to go through their studies and life with integrity, discipline, excellence, hard work and good planning.

A former head girl of Roman Ridge School, a Zonta International double prize winner of the Young Women in Public Affairs Award and now studying Computer Science at Ashesi University, encouraged the girls not to be scared of any challenges life throws at them.

She told her peers to be comfortable with what they set their minds to and love what they do with passion and dedication.

International Day of the Girl Child admonishes us all to help change any negative conceptions about the girl child and help develop them as future leaders.

Through counselling, mentoring and guidance to be assertive, bold and confident, society would help our girls to rise to the top to become responsible and independent future leaders.

What perhaps one should not forget is that the end beneficiaries of any affirmations and or reformations in the future of the girl child are all of us as families, communities, businesses, governments and the world at large.

It is a shared responsibility and the call therefore to action falls on every adult. It is a call to help the girl child and invest in their future for a better society.

Writer’s E-mail:vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com