General News of Friday, 18 October 2019
Source: GNA
Society must pay attention to reducing teen pregnancies are bedeviling the development of girls and assist in empowering them to take over their lives and future.
Mr Richard Buadu, Central Programme Unit Manager of Plan International-Ghana who made the call said the Government’s free Senor High School policy had come at an opportune time to engage girls as a means to prevent teen pregnancies.
He made the call when he delivered an address on behalf of Plan International Country Director at a durbar to commemorate the International Day of the Girl at Abura Obokor near Mankessem in Central Region.
The Day, on the theme “Girl, Get Equal Representation” was attended by school children mostly Girls in and around Obokor Township and was attended by traditional leaders and officials from the Abura- Asebu-Kwamankese
District Assembly and the Ghana Education Directorate.
Plan is an international, humanitarian child centred community development, non-governmental organisation with focus on child sponsorship as it strives for a just world that advanced children’s rights and equality for girls.
The Day was established to promote human rights, highlight gender inequalities between girls and boys and address the various forms of discrimination and abuse suffered by girls around the world.
He rallied support for the formation and inauguration of children/youth parliament, where girls would be given the opportunity to mimic parliament to encourage them to aspire to be politicians with some ending up as speaker of parliament, minority and majority leaders.
The sitting which will be used for advocacy and to prepare them to hold key social and political positions in future”,
In 2016 Plan instituted a project dubbed “Girl’s Take Over” which made a significate impact in the lives of girls many of whom were now in key positions all over the world and to date the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, strived to ensure that national programmes and policies were optimised in the best interest of girls and women across the country.
It is against this backdrop that plan and its stakeholders continued to advance the rights of girls, Mr Buadu added.
He expressed the need for all stakeholders in the grooming of the child, especially females to work hard to increase female representatives in parliament, saying if this was achieved women could influence policies and make laws in favour of girls.