The Christian Children's Fund of Canada (CCFC), a non-governmental organisation, has called on parents, communities, religious leaders and government institutions to ensure that all girls of school going age were given access to quality education.
"Abuses and neglect of the girl child in Ghana and elsewhere perpetuate the cycle of poverty in many rural communities...the UN estimates that one in three young women aged 20 to 24 - approximately 70 million children were married before the age of 18 is quite worrying", it said.
These were contained in a statement issued in Tamale on Thursday and signed by Madam Gifty Akosua Baka, the CCFC Country Director, and made available to the Ghana News Agency to mark the UN Day of the Girl child.
The global celebration was on the theme; "my life, my right, end child marriage."
The statement said though a lot had been done in Ghana by civil society organizations for the girl child through child rights organizations, there was still pockets of communities in which early girl child marriages persist and called for the need eliminate such practices.
"CCFC urges all well-meaning Ghanaians to come out with practical solutions that will help remove this canker from our society", it said and appealed to the Department of Social Welfare and Children to advocate for stiffer punishments for people who were caught still indulging in the practice of early marriages.