Ghana :Shortage of brides in East Gonja - MP claims

A Ghanaian Member of Parliament (MP) has claimed shortage of brides in parts of Northern Ghana, blaming what he calls the increasing wave of young girls migrating down south in search for menial jobs. Alhaji Ibrahim Dey, NDC MP for Salaga, made the curious claim on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday after a colleague MP from the Minority side read a statement in which she called for an urgent national response to the endemic Kayayei menace in Ghana. He said, "In my constituency, l can tell you that if you go there now you will not get a young girl to marry." His comments pressed an opposition MP, Benito Owusu-Bio, to rise with a demand that the Salaga MP be compelled by the Speaker to back his claims with empirical evidence. But, without providing any proof, Alhaji Dey, insisted that his claims that prospective bribes are in short supply in the East Gonja District were not misleading. He said "not less than 60%" of the young girls operating as Kayayei in the south of Ghana hail from the Salaga constituency, located in the East Gonja District of the Northern Region. The NDC MP's comments have come at a time of increasing concerns that some northern Ghana parents continue to force their underage female children into arranged marriages, mostly involving older men(Grooms), in defiance of Ghanain law. There is evidence that many of the young girls migrating down south fled forced marriages, which often disrupted their education. However, on his feet in Parliament, the Salaga MP did not cite such forced marriages as part of the factors pushing young girls to flee the safety of their homes in the north of Ghana into a life of near-servitude in southern cities. Instead, he put the blame on endemic poverty and crippling lack of basic amenities in the north. Later on Wednesday, the Speaker of Parliament ordered the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, to appear before the House – on a date yet to be decided – to “brief” MPs about government’s plans, if any, to arrest the endemic Kayayei menace in Ghana. Edward Doe Adjaho gave the order shortly after MPs discussed the widespread phenomenon of child head potters around the country. “I so direct that the Business Committee should arrange for the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to come and brief the Committee of the Whole on the steps that they are taking to deal with the Kayayei issue,” the Speaker said. The Standing Orders of Parliament define the “Committee Of the Whole” as a “committee composed of the whole body of Members of Parliament.” Wednesday’s Parliamentary discussions followed a statement by Oforikrom MP, Elizabeth Agyemang, calling for the formation of an “emergency committee” comprising the Ministries of Water Resources Works and Housing, Education, Gender, Children and Social Protection and Local Government and Rural Development to look into the Kayayei phenomenon and take “measures to arrest the situation.” The term Kayayei is defined loosely to mean a trade mostly associated with girls and women who migrate from Northern Ghana to the Southern sector of the country to engage in tedious jobs such as carrying loads of goods on their heads or backs –– from one place to another –– for a fee. Most of these female head porters form a unique urban poor group, regularly operating in and around lorry parks and markets in Ghana’s cities. The exact number of Kayayei operating around the country is unknown, but reports estimate that tens of thousands operate in Accra alone. Many sleep under very tormenting conditions –– in crammed wooden kiosks, in front of stores and shops, and on city walkways. As at 1984, Ghana’s urban population stood at 30 percent of the nation’s population. Nearly two decades later, the 2000 Population and Housing Census put Ghana’s urban population at 43.8 percent, giving credence the view that Ghana has become a hurriedly urbanizing nation. Again, the 2010 Population and Housing Census revealed that more than half of Ghana’s 24 million population now live in urban areas. Analysts have attributed part of this increase to sustained migration of women from rural areas to the nation’s urban centers. Available records show that since the early 1980s, tens of thousands of females in the north of Ghana have been fleeing intermittent communal violence, rising rural poverty as their established source of livelihood ––– rain-fed farming ––– can no longer sustain them. Many become Kayayei, working under perilous conditions in the streets, markets, shops and restaurants. Others serve as servants in the homes of affluent city dwellers continued