The Chief Commissioner of the Ghana Girl Guide Association; Mrs. Abdul Zakiya Wahab has given her take on the issues of teenage pregnancies in the country.
In an interview with Boheba Afriyie on Ebaanosen aired on Plan B Fm, she expressed her discontentment about the growing canker.
The Ghana Health Service recently revealed a figure of 112,800 recorded teenage pregnancies in the country which is so heart wrenching. She stated that, no girl child should be put in a situation where she is made to conform to a man’s sexual demands for survival and the men who forcefully have carnal knowledge of these girls must be apprehended and severely dealt with.
According to her, the country’s educational system must be revised to tech the students about chastity, adolescent health to adequately equip the students with the required knowledge and make them responsible in their actions and inactions.
This canker of teenage pregnancies with about 2,865 of them being between the ages of 10-14 is really appalling and needs to be tackled with all seriousness. “This can be stopped and we have to start from somewhere. It is our collective responsibility to protect our youth because this can get a lot worse if not salvaged promptly,” Mrs Wahab.
She mentioned that it is imperative to educate both sexes so that they will be advocates of change. “Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey said that, “if you educate a man, you educate an individual but if you educate a woman, you educate the whole nation. Our girls are the victims and it is incumbent on us to protect their rights,” she remarked.
She urged that offenders of such crime must be made to face the rigour of the law to deter others from committing similar crime and added that the situation where such offenders are shielded by relation all in the name of keeping family members united should be discouraged.
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