Sexual and domestic violence are developmental issues in Ghana and they remain a big challenge in the West African country.
Young girls are fond of getting pregnant and dropping out of school and constituting additional burden to their parents and their communities.
However, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has intervened by supporting Ghana to educate the adolescent girls to be aware of the need to practice safe sex and also know their rights on gender based violence.
The intervention of the UNFPA comprises funding Ghana Health Service (GHS), National Youth Authority (NYA), Department of Gender and Domestic Violence Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) to implement activities relating to sexuality, gender based violence, maternal mortality, adolescent sexual reproductive health rights and menstrual hygiene and child marriage.
In addition, young males, who are responsible for impregnating the girls, have been integrated into the programme and they are educated on the dangers associated with impregnating adolescent girls. The campaign is going down well with the girls and boys as teenage mothers are going back to school to continue their education.
In the Central Region of Ghana, which previously ranked as the highest in teenage pregnancy in the country, has for the past four years recorded a decline in teenage pregnancy and gender based violence.
For instance, in 2013, 14,000 teenage pregnancy cases were recorded. The figure reduced to 12,014 in 2016 and 11,000 in 2017. It is, however, hoped that it will further decline as more activities are being organized by the stakeholders.
Interestingly, young girls are now enlightened to some extent that they are able to report defilement, rape, assault and gender based violence cases to DOVVSU, a division under the Ghana Police Service, which handles such issues.
In order to assess the impact of the activities on the communities, the UNFPA Country Representative in Ghana, Niyi Ojuolape, and UNICEF Country Director, Anne-Claire Dufay and their team embarked on a monitoring exercise and visited various communities in the Central Region and interacted with young girls, boys, parents and youth groups.
The exercise, which took place from 8-10 July, 2019, saw the team visit Cape Coast School for the Deaf, Ntrenoa Basic School in Elmina, Komenda M.A. Basic School, and Elmina Zongo Mosque among others.
Speaking during the visit, Mr. Ojuolape called on Ghanaians to speak honestly to their children on sexuality and not to hide things from them.
According to him, preaching abstinence alone will not solve the problem. He urged parents to rather let them be aware of the nitty-gritty about sex and the need to prevent themselves from getting pregnant and contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
He also called on religious leaders to speak honestly on sexuality by encouraging them to practice safe sex.
For her part, the UNICEF Country Representative called for comprehensive sex education to enable adolescents to understand the issues and guide against getting pregnant and contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
DAP/GIK/APA