Education on sexuality: Relevant to young people
Sixteen-year-old Elorm (not her real name) had dreamt of becoming a nurse but, unfortunately, she dropped out of school at the age of 13. According to her, she became pregnant while in junior high school, and this shattered all her dreams.
Ignorant of the consequences, she involved herself in a sexual activity that resulted in an unplanned pregnancy.
Speaking to this reporter, she said becoming pregnant was the most traumatic experience for her to endure at that age, as an unmarried girl. “I lost my morals and I was strapped with the social stigma of being a pregnant teenager. I couldn’t go to school, church or play with my friends. My parents were disappointed in me and other family members and friends looked at me as a loose, immoral and impure girl.”
She added that to avert the shame she had brought to her parents, she was sent away to stay with her aunt in Accra, thus closing her chapter on education.
There are a number of young people like Elorm in Ghana who are not well informed before they become sexually active, and that makes it difficult for them to take decisions related to their sexual life.
Education
Good education on sexuality is essential to help young people to prepare for healthy and fulfilling lives. High quality information and comprehensive sexuality education can equip them with the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to make informed choices now and in the future.
It will also enhance their independence and self-esteem and help them to experience their sexuality and relationships in a positive and pleasurable way at the right time.
According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), high quality, comprehensive and right-based sexuality education programme can delay initiation of sexual activity and unprotected sex.
It further states that sexuality education programmes can decrease the number of sexual partners, increase contraceptive and condom use and therefore decrease unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections among young people.
Stakeholders’ meeting
To brainstorm the need for a Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in the country, a stakeholders’ meeting has been held in Accra by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the University of Cape Coast (UCC).
The UNFPA defines comprehensive sexuality education as a right-based and gender–focused approach to sexuality education, whether in school or out of school.
It aims at equipping children and young people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that will enable them to develop a positive view of their sexuality, in the context of their emotional and social development.
By embracing a holistic view of sexuality and sexual behaviour, which goes beyond a focus on the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection, CSE enables children and young people to acquire information about human sexuality, sexual and reproductive health and human rights.
It will also enable them to explore and nurture positive values and attitudes towards their sexual and reproductive health and develop self-esteem, respect for human rights and gender equality.
Adolescent reproductive health policy
Speaking at the stakeholders’ meeting, a researcher at the Department of Population and Health, UCC, Professor Kofi Awusabo Asare, said there were shortfalls in Ghana’s adolescent reproductive health policy in meeting a comprehensive sexuality education.
He said the policy was weak at reproductive health rights and issues such as knowing more about other sexually transmitted infections apart from HIV and AIDS.
He also mentioned that understanding the issues of pregnancy and pregnancy-related challenges and how to avoid unwanted pregnancy was lacking.
He said there were currently some young people who were married and those people could not be asked to abstain, and emphasised the need to help such people to take decisions that would benefit them.
He said a comprehensive sexuality education would make information available for effective and efficient decision-making with regard to the reproductive health system.
Situation of young people
For his part, the country representative of UNFPA, Dr Babatunda Ahonsi, said over the years the situation of young people, especially on issues related to their sexual and reproductive health, had not improved in the country.
According to him, the number of young people who are engaged in high risk sex (casual sex), that is those not using condoms and are not protecting themselves, have gone up, while the country’s teenage pregnancy rate of 14 per 1000 had not seen any improvement over the last 16 years.
“You look back from 2003 to 2014 and the level of comprehensive knowledge among young people on HIV is getting worse. It shows that either we are not providing enough information, education and sensitisation and giving them the skills to protect themselves to stay away from these unsafe ways which compromise their lives’ chances, or we are not giving the information effectively; hence, they are not using the information the way they need to manage their lives.”
Dr Ahonsi, therefore, called for positive mechanisms and quality assurance systems to ensure that the school system would design a curriculum that would entail best ways to give life-saving information to young people.
“Luckily for Ghana, the majority of the adolescents are in school and they are a captive audience. It behoves the school system to provide them with comprehensive information that is factual, non-judgemental in a way that they can relate with, so that they can use that information to stay out of situations that put them at risk,” he said.
The participants comprised delegates from both governmental and non-governmental organisations and the media.
They called for the inclusion of a comprehensive sexuality education in the country’s educational curriculum and a comprehensive sexuality education guideline for the non-education sector.
