President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has admonished Muslim parents to invest in the education of their female children.
According to Akufo-Addo, Islam’s revered holy prophet, Mohammed, spoke against what he described as ‘gender injustice’ adding that any move in educating female children is synonymous to honouring the teachings of the prophet.
“It is important for us to recollect that one of the cardinal teachings of the prophet Mohammed is gender injustice. Remember that before the advent of Islam, women in Arabia were treated as secondary citizens and female infanticide was rife; a situation the Quran alludes to when it states that when the Day of Judgment ‘the female buried alive would be questioned for what crime she was killed.’”
“The Prophet restored the dignity of the woman, which we are required to uphold. It is not for nothing that the Prophet urges us to learn half of our religion from Aisha, a woman. This Prophetic admonishment resembles Kwegyir Aggrey’s oft-quoted statement that ‘if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation,’” the president added.
President Akufo-Addo made the remark when he addressed Muslims at the Eid ul Fitr celebration held at the Independence square in Accra on Monday.
The Eid celebration is a day set aside to mark the end of a 30-day fasting by Muslims, and also begins the month of Shawwal in the Islamic calendar.
Although Ghana’s 2010 population census estimates females to be 51%, same cannot be said of statistics in the educational sector as many of young ladies are given out in marriage instead of being in school.
A research conducted by Non-Governmental Organization, Songtaba, revealed that child marriages have increased by 42 percent and it’s very rampant in Muslim communities as well as the three regions of the north.
The report also revealed that, girls as young as 13 years had been forced to marry against their willpower.
It is against this backdrop that a number of civil society organizations, traditional authorities as well as government, have waged war and boosted advocacy in a bid to curb the menace, and allow young girls to further their education instead of being in marriage at tender ages.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
