Dubbed the ‘African Women Intercultural Dialogue’, it is expected to bring together gender experts from different African countries, including Nigeria, Cameroun, Uganda, South Africa, Sierra Leone, among others, to deliberate on sustainable ways to stop harmful cultural practices that hinder the progress of young girls.

The theme for the dialogue session, which is “Negative cultural practices and underdevelopment of the African girl-child and women”, was announced at a press conference organised by the All African Media Network, which is a Pan-African media network aimed at advancing the cause of Africans. 

Statistics

According to statistics from the African Union (AU), globally, 720 million women living today were married before their 18th birthday. Every year, they are joined by another 15 million more girls.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 40 per cent of women are married as children. Child marriage is widespread in West and Central Africa, where 42 per cent of women are married as children, and in East and Southern Africa where child marriage affects 37 per cent of girls.

Africa is home to 15 of the 20 countries with the highest rates of child marriage in the world.

According to the Ghana Demographic Health Survey, 2008, six per cent of women aged 15-49 were married before the age of 15, and 27 per cent before the age of 18. 

Again FGM is practised in 30 countries in Western, Eastern and North-Eastern Africa and in some other parts of the globe.

Awareness creation

One of the convenors of the dialogue session, the Proprietress of One Africa Health Resort, Elmina, Imahkus Njinga Okofu Ababio, at the press conference said the dialogue would help raise awareness of the harmful effects of these cultural practices.

She said many girls in Africa and some parts of the world had been denied of education and their childhood because they had to go through one cultural rite or another, leaving them unproductive to their countries.

She expressed the view that cultural and traditional practices had denied many women their rightful places in the development of their countries.

She said the dialogue would be replicated in other African countries to ensure that harmful cultural practices were stopped to give young girls and women equal access to education, health and other social amenities.

The Director, Celmar Travel and Tours Limited, Mrs Celestine Afatsawo, who also addressed the media, said there was the need to use such dialogue, sessions to ensure that laws and policies were made to help send young girls to school.

The Programme Co-ordinator, All Africa Media Network, Mr Cookie Chumaka Iwocha, said the dialogue, which would be held at the Accra International Conference Centre, would centre on policy, social and educational issues aimed at the sustainable development of the girl child.

He said dialogue would also affirm Africa’s endangered positive cultural norms from cultural clashes and propagate cross-cultural intelligence and positive cultural exchange in today’s ever-evolving world.