District develops plan to fight teenage pregnancy

The North Tongu District Assembly in the Volta Region has initiated an action plan with key stakeholders to develop a three-year strategic plan to reduce cases of teenage pregnancy in the district.

Health officials contend that teenage pregnancy and HIV infection had been some of the serious issues confronting the district, for which reason, the district health directorate had conducted a survey to establish underlining factors contributing to the menace.

The available data at the health directorate indicate that the annual average recorded case of teenage pregnancy (from 2013-2016) in the North Tongu District was 15.5 per cent. This is higher than the global estimate of 11 per cent, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), out of which 95 per cent occurred in low and middle income countries, including Ghana.

Identifying factors

For this reason, the assembly, in collaboration with the district health directorate and district HIV and AIDS Committee, engaged key stakeholders, including chiefs, religious leaders, health workers, law enforcers and social workers, at Battor to identify factors contributing to cases of teenage pregnancy in the district and to develop a district road map in addressing the issue.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the District Director of Health Services, Mr Evans Attivor, said although there had been efforts by groups in the district in the past to address the issue, those efforts were not comprehensive enough and not well co-ordinated.

Mr Attivor indicated that the action plan to be developed would be implemented in three years to see to the end of teenage pregnancy in the district.

Routine data

Throwing light on the issue, Mr Attivor stated that a routine data at the various health centres in the district had given huge signal of cases of teenage pregnancy, which prompted the directorate to conduct the survey.

According to him, the survey had revealed that girls in the district, as young as eight to 11 years, engaged in sexual activities, and that the majority of the teenagers who became pregnant were between the ages of 12 and 14 which painted a gloomy picture for the future of young girls in the district.

Mr Attivor mentioned factors contributing to this menace as lack of parental care, poverty and irresponsibility on the part of some older men. 

According to him, the survey revealed that most of the sexual partners of the girls were over 20 years older than them and surprisingly had included key people, including opinion leaders, assembly members and some traditional leaders.

The directorate, he said, would ensure that whatever strategy was developed was keenly followed to achieve the desired results.

Leading cases

The District Coordinating Director, Mr Eric Agbo, expressed worry that the Tongu enclave, made up of North Tongu, South Tongu and Central Tongu, was leading in teenage pregnancy in the Volta Region.

Mr Agbo said the district was young and could not start on such poor note, and therefore, called on chiefs, queenmothers, teachers, health workers and community leaders to help in the crusade against teenage pregnancy, adding that “we all have onerous responsibility in our fields of endeavour to ensure we collectively contribute towards the total elimination of this hydra-headed problem.”

The Medical Superintendent of the Battor Catholic Hospital, Dr Bernard Hayford Atuguba, called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to design a programme that would enable health practitioners to move to the various schools to assist teachers to explain issues concerning their reproductive health, dangers of early sex and educate them on the use of contraceptives.