The process of arranged marriages is still in existence in many parts of the world. In Ghana, it is an issue of grave concern to many people, especially Human Rights activists; though the nation is aiming at increasing the rate of development, this issue still plagues them and not a lot is being done to curb it. A United Kingdom-based organization (Womankind) that promotes women's rights indicated that even though legislation prohibiting forced marriages exists in Ghana, little action has been made to eliminate such practices. Similarly, the Ghana NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child states that even though such laws exist, they are not enforced. Arranged marriages are set up in various ways and are frowned on because the youth are not given the opportunity to find their own potential life partners but rather have to go by what their parents have chosen for them. In some extreme cases, teenagers are forced put their education to a halt and get married at such young ages.
One form of an arranged marriage is set up by one family entering into an agreement with another family to have their wards get married to each other, so they wait till their wards are between the ages of sixteen and eighteen and then go on with the marital rights. Generally it is most teenagers' dream to have a successful future while married to someone they have gotten to know, feel they are compatible with, and most essentially, genuinely love. An ideal marriage should be agreed by both parties involved after they have seen that they want to spend the rest of their lives together because marriage is a holy matrimony that should last "till death do us part" , and the only way that can realistically happen is if there is love and affection between the two.
