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The Volta Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Ms Comfort Ablometi, has advised teenage girls not to use poverty as an excuse to engage in sexual activities.

She said some girls, who indulged in sex at early ages, attributed their behaviour to poverty to elicit sympathy, forgetting that they were destroying their own future by engaging in early sex.

Ms Ablometi, who gave the advice when she addressed about 600 pupils in the Ho municipality, urged them to focus on their studies and explore all opportunities to make their lives better in future.

She was addressing the teenage girls from 12 basic schools drawn from Taviefe and Sokode in the Ho municipality at a sensitisation programme on gender-based violence (GBV), domestic violence (DV), harmful traditional practices, women and adolescent reproductive health and their rights.

Role models

“Many young ladies have been through hardships but in spite of all their difficulties which included financial problems, they have been able to achieve greater heights and have become role models” she stated.

Ms Ablometi said the sensitisation of the girls was necessary because the Volta Region, according to records,  was leading in cases of teenage pregnancy; a situation that had become problematic and needed to be addressed by all stakeholders.

Reports from the Ghana Education Service (GES), she said, revealed that every year some pregnant girls registered for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) but were unable to do so because their pregnancies had reached advanced stages.

She stated that most victims, when interviewed, had attributed their woes to poverty, but in her view, that was not a good reason for the young girls to find themselves in such  unfortunate situations.

Abstain from sex

She asked the teenage girls to abstain from sex to be able to complete their education and advance to higher levels, adding, “With a little discipline and determination, you can still go up.”

The director advised them to report persons who sexually harassed or abused them to their parents or the police for them to be punished. 

The sensitisation programme was organised by the Department of Gender with funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and aimed at educating  the young girls on the effects of and prevention of teenage pregnancy, sexual and gender-based violence, early marriage and self-protection.

Implications of teenage pregnancy

A Principal Nursing Officer of Public Health at the Ho Municipal Health Directorate, Madam Vivian Tettevi, took the teenagers through topics such as the implications of GBV, DV and adolescent reproductive and sexual health.

She educated them on the consequences of teenage pregnancy, which includes development of complications during childbirth, early motherhood, and, sometimes, death, indicating that teenage girls mostly suffered fistula and some childbirth complications during delivery.

A session was also conducted by the Volta Regional Principal Investigator of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mr Daniel Carlos Mensah, who spoke on the situation in the Volta Region and also showed a video clip on teenage pregnancy.