[ 2015-04-19 ]

99 percent have sex before marriage - Oye Lithur
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social
Protection, Nana Oye Lithur has urged the public
not to confuse sex with marriage.

According to her, the two were different and that
to help end child marriages, the public should not
call for the fusion of the legal age for sexual
consent and that of the legal age for marriage.

In Ghana a discrepancy exists between the legal
age of sexual consent and legal age of marriage.

Whilst that of sex according to the Children’s
Act is age 16, that of marriage is 18, stipulated
in the 1992 constitution.

In some communities, it was a cultural and
traditional thing that once a girl or young woman
consents to sex and becomes pregnant; she has to
marry even if she has not attained age 18.

This, according to social scientists, was due to
the fear of stigma of teenage pregnancy as well as
protection of girls’ virginity and “family
honour.”

This has raised concerns that the country should
therefore consider passing a law that prescribes a
same age for consent for sex and marriage as part
of efforts to end child marriages.

But the Minister of Gender, Children and Social
Protection, Nana Oye Lithur thinks that there was
no point fusing sex and marriage.

Speaking at a two-day media workshop on joining
efforts to ending child marriages which was held
in the Eastern regional capital of Koforidua, the
Minister said sex and marriage were two different
things.

She argued that in practice, sex does not only
occur within marriage and that sex also occurs
outside of marriage, between girlfriends and
boyfriends and what have you.

“…what is happening is that at 16, you have
the legal power and authority to consent to have
sex with somebody. You get married at age 18. So
marriage is separate from having sex. I don’t
know why we try to put the two together, because
I’m sure if you went round this room, 99 percent
of us would have had sex without being married, so
why do you want to fuse sex and marriage,” she
told the journalists.

She said the country cannot have a law that
prescribes that you get married at age 18 and then
you also can have sex at age 18. “They are two
different issues,” she said.

“When you even look at the research data in
Ghana, you find out that the age at which people
are having sex is even younger than 16. But of
course for the purposes of morality and all that
we need to set a date [sic],” she said.

"So the same researchers and sociologist have come
up with the age of 16, where they believe that 16
is the age at which somebody is mature or whatever
enough to be able to consent. And that was passed
by Parliament in 1998, so if there is an issue,
then it is up to Parliament to review.... But age
of marriage and sex are two different notions and
we should package it as such."

Asked if the country would not be promoting
promiscuity if it continued to separate marriage
from sex by law in that regard, Nana Oye Lithur
said the issue has to be interrogated further.

“Well, let’s discuss this further and see,
because I think it is a good point that you are
making. …because we want to address child
marriage, it is basically to act as a deterrent,
let’s discuss it and see.”

Contributing to the discussions, the Deputy Sector
Minister, John Alexander Ackon said: “Consent
should be taken into consideration but you seem to
suggest that because one is 16, the person should
necessarily go and have sex. That is not what the
point is. it only says that if you want to, you
should have the consent of the person.”

Ghana is reported to have one of the highest child
marriage prevalence rates in the world according
to the 2011 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey
(MICS). About 27 per cent of women between ages 20
– 24 years were married or were in union before
age 18 in 2011 according to the MICS.

Again one out of four girls or 25 per cent will be
married before their 18th birthday, six per cent
will marry before age 15 and 36 per cent of girls
in rural areas will be married before 18 compared
to 19 per cent in urban areas.

Source - Starrfmonline

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