First lady, Lordina Mahama, has made a call for prioritizing quality education for the girl-child. According to her, girl child education is key in tackling poverty.

Lordina Mahama was speaking at the launch of the 2013 State of the World’s Girls Report by Plan Ghana.

The First Lady said, the launch of the report provides an important avenue for public discussions, debates and awareness of the social, economic and political effects of disasters on girls and children.

“Even without disasters, I have seen at firsthand how the future of some young girls and children have been truncated because of the poor state and living conditions of their families.” she added

According to Lordina Mahama, Poverty cannot be and does not create a good environment for any growing child. It is worse when a growing adolescent girl is caught up in a natural disaster or war.

She noted that through her organization, the Lordina Foundation, she has   for many years been working with children especially the unfortunate ones who have been admitted into orphanages.

“Girls in particular must not be treated differently or segregated because of their gender but on the expectations of how they fulfil their assigned duties or responsibilities”.Lordina Mahama added.

Country Director of Plan Ghana, Prem Shukla, said girls in Ghana continue to face challenges on daily basis due to socio-economic values in some communities where boys were given preference over girls when it came to education.

According to him, the day was to create awareness about the challenges facing the girl and to bring together international attention to focus on these challenges to rally around communities, organizations, politicians, activists, leaders and individuals towards achieving full potentials of girls.