The public has recently witnessed an alleged marriage between a 63-year-old Nuumo Borketey Laweh XXXIII and a 12-year-old girl. The supposed marriage between the priest and the underage girl has divided the public on the interface between religion or culture and the law.
Esq. Dennis Adjei Dwomoh indicated that in Ghana, just like other jurisdictions, the right to do something is age-related. He noted that in terms of children, the law indicates that a child, under the age of 18 years, cannot be in any marriage whatsoever.
He further revealed that between the ages of 18 and 21, a child still needs the consent of his or her parent to get married.
He argued that whether the relation between the priest and the young girl is betrothal or marriage, the child in question is not in a position to give consent to the tie which hampers her liberty.
“Even if it is betrothal, you can’t force a child to be in a betrothal even if it is customary. The customs of the land are subject to the laws of Ghana. It is for this reason the constitution mandates the National House of Chiefs to codify the customary laws and eliminate the archaic ones that are inimical to the child”.
Esq. Dennis Adjei Dwomoh
He indicated that the obligation of the state to protect the child against child marriage is not just statutory but also an international obligation under the United Nations’ (UN) Convention on Consent to Marriage.
Furthermore, Esq. Dennis Dwomoh indicated that the Ghanaian system does not support the welfare of children, indicating that the images of the child should not have been circulated on the internet as it may affect the mental and psychological well-being of the child.
He argued that not much funding for the activities for social welfare to ensure that there are better outcomes in the conduct of their duties, alleging that the public is likely to forget the incident after a week.
“We need to look at the social dynamics of it and seek the best interest of the child because in our jurisdiction, anytime it comes out, people are interested in the accused forgetting about the victim. The laws of Ghana don’t protect the victim”. Esq. Dwomoh noted.
The Police And Investigation
The former Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, Nana Oye Bampoe Addo, showed her delight in the actions taken by the Gender Ministry and the Police to bring some sanity to the situation.
She suggested that there must be an investigation conducted to ensure that the situation is resolved properly as she warned against stigmatizing the underage girl involved in the incident.
Furthermore, she highlighted that issues such as this keep surfacing due to the lack of boundary between the law and the African customary values.
Madam Nana Oye Bampoe Addo indicated that due to the reluctance of traditional leaders to create such boundaries, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was criminalized in 1994 to ensure that there was a clear cut between the law and customary values.
“Even if you look at trokosi, it’s been very difficult to arrest even arrest. Are you going to arrest a priest for partaking in trokosi?… that is why the National House of Chiefs comes into sort of mediate and address these”.
Madam Nana Oye Bampoe Addo
She also noted that issues of such magnitude breed conflict and disunity in families as members tend to have different views on such matters.
She opined that the parents of the underage girl in this incident may be chastised by their family and community for ignoring tradition which may take a mental toll on them.
Disagreeing with the stance of Esq. Dwomoh, Madam Bampoe Addo noted that social welfare, on different occasions, has done a lot of work to ensure the well-being of the Ghanaian child.
However, she admitted that the welfare scheme is constrained by the unavailability of resources and logistics which hampers its progress in some cases.
Conclusively, she appealed for more resources and logistics for the social welfare and the Ministry of Gender to enable them to conduct their duties effectively. She also appealed to the Nungua House of Chiefs to help mediate and solve this issue.
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