Ex-president John Mahama has described as regressive and intolerable the continuous practice of child marriage in the 21st century.

He thus urged all and sundry to come on board to fight the menace.

“The practice of taking young girls out of school midstream and marrying them off mostly to men far older than them must stop… One of the most backward and unacceptable practice is child marriage.

“This must be a cause that we take up with passion,” he remarked Tuesday in a keynote address at the Women in Agriculture Summit in Morocco Tuesday September 12, 2017.

“Girls must not only be made to go to school, but must also stay in school for as far as their capacity for academic pursuit can take them,” he added.

A recent study by Women Empowerment advocacy showed child marriage and gender based violence in Northern Ghana upped by 42 percent which is above the national average.