Excuse for Nungua minor marriage unacceptable

Since it emerged on Saturday that a 12-year-old girl had been married to the Nungua Gborbu Wulomo (fetish priest) there has been public outcry over the matter.

The outcry is particularly over the age of the girl as it is viewed against modern circumstances.

Meanwhile, there are those in support of the marriage, claiming custom and tradition as the basis of their stance.

For instance, the spokesperson for the Gborbu Wulomo shrine, Nii Bortey Kofi Frankwa II, has come public with the defence that the marriage has been according to traditional practices and spiritual requirements.

According to the temple’s spokesperson, a virgin was needed to fulfil a significant role within the shrine and that necessitated the choice of the 12-year-old girl for being a virgin.

Frankwa says the selection of minor, Naa Yomo Ayemuade, to play that role aligns with the longstanding spiritual traditions of the Ga-Adangbe group and that the critics of the marriage do not understand the depth of the Ga Dangbe tradition and so they should seek understanding of it before passing judgement.

Yes, it is good for people to understand certain cultural practices so they can make fair judgement about them, but there is no need to seek understanding of a cultural practice when it is clear that it violates law and inflames sensibilities.

Both the 1992 Constitution and the 1998 Children’s Act set the legal age for marriage at 18 for both girls and boys, thereby making child marriage illegal in Ghana.

Are traditionalists subject to the laws of the country or not?

There is no need to massage what must be said against what is happening at Nungua and elsewhere in the country like certain communities in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region which the Social Welfare Department has identified as hotspots for child marriage.

We are happy Amnesty International Ghana and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) have strongly condemned the marriage between the 63-year-old Gborbu Wulomo of Nungua and the 12-year-old girl as unconstitutional and illegal.

It is shocking people like Rev. Dr Daniel Nii Gyasi Ankrah, Director of Administration, Office of the Gborbu Wulomo-Shitse who should help transform cultural practices in the country are neck-deep in the perpetration of even the outmoded ones.

He admitted at the Nungua Traditional Council presser yesterday that for the past six years the 12-year-old had been performing her particular rite.

Going by this, it means the girl had started playing her role at age six.

How can a six-year-old understand the complex traditional practice?

There are clear restrictions and violation of rights here.

It is ridiculous that the Nungua Traditional Council is claiming the girl is 16.

Is it trying to allude to the country’s Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), which pegs the age of sexual consent at 16 years old?

Now that the police have the girl and her mother under their protection as reported, the police can ascertain the age from her Ghana Card.

It is time for Parliament and all the relevant institutions, including the media, to help reverse what has been done at Nungua and to halt all out-moded and obnoxious cultural practices in the country.