Access to timely sexual information: Relevant to girl-child

Thirty-four girls in the Mamprusi District of the Upper East Region were pregnant at the time of their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in 2012. The number increased to 35 in 2013 and four of them failed to write the exams, according to statistics from the Girl Child Office of the district. 

The Bongo and Kasena-Nankana West districts in the same region, each recorded a total of 24 girls being pregnant during the BECE in 2014 and the region also recorded of 86 cases of girls being pregnant. Unreported cases are more across regions, districts, communities and schools with bitter experience of teenage pregnancies and their toll on enrolment and retention in schools. This calls for preventive rather than curative measures. 

Good quality sex education makes young people to discover and be aware of their Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH), know their rights, assert themselves and stay healthy emotionally, psychologically and physically, to pursue other aspects of education to their full potential. 

Sex education is a catalyst in addressing sexual health issues, and serves as a cost-effective way of promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people. It holds the key to containing the menace of teenage pregnancy (most of which leads to early child marriages), unsafe abortion, among others. 

It is for this reason that non-governmental actors in collaboration with government, are finding ways of incorporating teaching and learning of Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) into the school curricula. 

Way forward 

Working together with the Northern Regional Health Service Directorate, the Northern Sector on Action Awareness Centre (NORSAAC) supported in the development of a handbook of Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights which will be used as an additional material to educate trainee nurses’  on reproductive health and how to offer counselling and sex education to young people. 

The book, which was launched recently, will also be used as a guide for health practitioners to be able to provide up-to-date information to the already vulnerable young people. It will serve as a guide to peer educators and health education interventionists at the community level to carry out effective SRHR education to reduce of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the region.

The NORSAAC reflected on the best practices of its Innovative Sexuality Education Project (ISEP 1 and ISEP 11) implemented in the region to develop the manual with various ideas from other partners such as the Regional Advisory and Information Systems (RAINS), Savannah Signatures, Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) and  the Northern Network for Education Development (NNED).

Explanation

Madam Rahinatu Yakubu, the Regional Health Promoter, explained that most young people, especially young girls in the region, were ignorant about their sexuality so the document would be used to teach them at the various adolescent corners. Adolescent corner is the centre where adolescents and young people can visit, ask questions on sex, offer referral services and provide convenient visiting hours, privacy and confidentiality for adolescents to be open-minded to ask all the questions that are eating them up, without fear or intimidation, and get them talking about their daily struggles. 

“This educational manual has come at an ideal time and it is a big relief for the directorate, especially in our quest to educate the young girls and also empower them to say no, agree or negotiate for safer sex”, she said.     

Madam Hafsatu Sey Sumani, Head of Programmes and Policy at NORSAAC explained that most students, especially those in the basic schools, have very limited access to SRHR information and that the only avenue for them to get some SRHR information was from Integrated Science, Social Studies, Environmental Science and English Language, which was limited to reproduction in humans, infectious diseases of humans, adolescent reproductive health, citizenship and human rights, domestic violence and conflict and stigmatisation and discrimination. 

“GES, through co-curriculum activities, provides information on SRHR to students in basic schools through the UNICEF— supported HIV Alert School Model (ASM). This provides somehow adequate SRHR education in school but is limited to 14 districts out of the total of 216 districts in the country. The comprehensiveness of this has question marks. 

“The adoption and replication of the ASM has not been done by government despite the reports that the government has adopted the model for SRHR education in schools. It is unclear when government intends to replicate the ASM nationwide,” she observed.  

Offences

According to her, Parliament enacted the Domestic Violence Act 732 in 2007 wherein sexual abuses like forced sex and sexual harassment are considered offences. Yet, sexual right violations are occurring in schools probably because victims do not know their rights, and education in schools will cure this mischief.

A survey conducted by Savanna Signatures in schools in the Northern Region, shows that three per cent of teachers considered forced sex to be alright, 94 per cent of teachers think it is better for students to have limited information on their sexuality, 24 per cent of teachers disagree with the use of contraceptives by students, 63 per cent of students are not informed on STI preventions, 40 per cent of students see the ideal age to commence sex to be between 16 and 20. This demonstrates nothing but the need for more work to be done in schools regarding comprehensive SRHR. 

NORSAAC, based on the above, also supported in the development of a model for teaching SRHR in schools, which the Northern Regional Education office endorsed. Already, NORSAAC’s ISEP project implemented in the region, has led to a reduction in teenage pregnancies among pupils, especially in Karaga District and Savelugu/Nantong Municipality. 

The writer works at the GNA