Participants at a roundtable organised by ActionAid Ghana (AAG), a development charity, have called for increased investment in girl-child education to curb poverty and female vulnerability in Ghana.
According to them, the benefits of educating a girl include higher savings and disposable incomes and lower female fertility, which are crucial to poverty alleviation.
Over 40 members of the young urban women’s project were drawn from Kpobiman and surrounding towns, all in the Ga South District of the Greater Accra Region, to discuss issues affecting their personal and societal development.
ActionAid Ghana is partnering the Ark Foundation, Ghana, to implement the project, which is sponsored by the Norwegian Development Agency.
The two-and-half-year project seeks to mobilise and empower 2,000 young women between the ages of 15 and 25 years in poor urban and peri-urban areas in Ghana.
It is formulated on four thematic areas, which are Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR), Decent Work and Livelihood Choices, Violence against Women, and Unpaid Care Work (household chores).
The participants, in a resolution, suggested that education at all levels should empower the individual to have self-control over vices such as greed, violence and acts that negatively affect society.
“Education should also nurture and provide the platform for healing and caring for others at the same time, provide the impetus for the fight for justice, equality, freedom and morality, under the umbrella of democracy and the rule of law.”
They called for a national debate on the revision of the educational system to make it more purposeful and relevant to the country’s circumstances.
“Although laws, policies and education can help reduce sexual and economic exploitation, we believe that a functionally educated woman would fight to own her body, mind and finances.”
A participant, who is a victim of workplace sexual harassment, said: “A lot of women come face-to-face daily with the demeaning prospect of offering sexual favours for a job, and for many who are employed, they live with fondling and touching, sexually suggestive gestures and words, and even rape.”
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