Mosquito Nets To Be Included In Bride Price Requirements

These days before a man can go and see the parents of a woman he wants to settle down with and ask for her hand in marriage, he has to make sure his pockets are well greased. The items some of the bride’s parents ask for as dowries are getting more preposterous by the day, with some shamelessly demanding cars, iPads, motorbikes for brothers-n-law, amongst other things. If the woman happens to be well-educated, some wicked parents calculate the entire cost of her tuition from nursery to masters and add it to the already unbearable list of items.
No wonder some men feel like they “own” women when they tie the knot and bring them into their homes. And who can blame them, after the parents have made it look like they are literally selling their daughter to them?
Well, it seems that in this era of pet mosquitoes and rampant malaria, one more item is making a grand entry into the bride price list. Mosquito nets. This should be a rather welcome addition and I don’t think anyone would object too vehemently considering how frustrating it would be to pay an arm and a leg for a woman only for her to come and die of malaria in your house.
In any case, mosquito nets would probably be the least expensive thing on the list which is probably the most useful and practical. In an attempt to make mosquito nets a popular item in Ghanaian homes, Dr Yaw Ofori Yeboah, Deputy Director, Public Health of Ghana Health Services, Volta Region has called on traditional authorities and family heads to make treated bed nets part of items required for marriage rites.
Dr Yeboah was addressing this year’s regional stakeholders meeting on the Long Lasting Insecticide Nets (LLINs) Point Mass Distribution campaign launch for 2018 in Ho. He said when people were made to pay for bed nets as part of dowries, they would appreciate its importance and not abandon the nets in their rooms. He also called for measures to be put in place to punish people who use treated nets for fishing and fencing backyard gardens.
He said the GHS would this year distribute over two million treated bed nets in 23 districts in the Volta Region, having done same at Akatsi North and South Tongu districts as part of its campaign to make the Volta Region malaria free, ahead of the rainy season. The distribution is scheduled for March 27 to 29 and from April 3 to 6.