Obaa Yaa Frimpong: Parliament owes this child more than an apology

Ghana has spent years running public campaigns against child marriage; a lawmaker joking that a nine-year-old “is now his wife,” inside the very building where laws against child marriage are made, is not a harmless slip — it is the same script campaigns have been trying to dismantle, delivered from a position of authority a child cannot push back against.

Direct, private support for the child and her family — including access to counselling — offered by Parliament itself, not left to the family to seek out on their own after being thrust into a national news story without their consent.

Conduct unbecoming a Member — particularly conduct directed at a child during an official parliamentary program — should trigger the same disciplinary machinery Parliament uses for other breaches of decorum.