21 SHS nurses schooled on gender-based violence
Twenty-one nurses placed in Senior High School (SHS) in the Central Region have received education on sexual and gender-based violence and how to detect student survivors for support.
The workshop was organised by the Central Regional Ghana Health Service directorate, with support from the United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA) and the Central Regional Coordinating Council.
The participants were from eight districts, including the Upper Denkyira East, Assin Fosu, Komenda-Edina-Eguafo Abrem (KEEA), Awutu Senya, Agona West, Gomoa East, Awutu Senya East and Cape Coast.
The Central Regional Adolescent Health Coordinator and UNFPA Regional Focal Person at the GHS directorate, Emma Delali Forley, said the workshop was part of efforts to create awareness about what constituted SGBV and to help the nurses detect survivors for support and redress.
She indicated that many teenage pregnancies that came to their facilities were also defilement cases and they must help the relevant authorities to bring perpetrators to book by reporting such cases.
Ms Forley urged them to create awareness among the clients to help reduce the menace.
Build girls' confidence
She further urged the nurses to help build the self-confidence of young girls they came into contact with to enable them to make the right choices and to report incidents of SGBV.
"Adolescents form about one-third of our population and must not be neglected in efforts to create awareness on SGBV," she stated.
A detective with the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, Richard Boadi Twum, said it was important to orient young boys to treat girls with respect.
"As a society, we have a responsibility to raise men to treat girls and women right," he stated.
Mr Twum indicated that most SGBV cases were perpetrated by boys and men against girls and women because they have been brought up to believe it was acceptable to mistreat women.
Training boys to treat girls right should start from the home. Boys should be taught to respect their sisters and to treat them right.
He stated that recent cases of young boys abusing girls were increasing, saying that this should be worrying for all.
He stressed the need for intensified education on sexual offences and the associated consequences if found guilty at all, to deter persons from perpetrating such offences.
Mr Twum particularly advised young boys to be cautious about sexual relations with young girls, saying one could easily find themselves behind bars for such relations.
The Central Regional Public Health Nurse, Rosemond Yeboah-Sarpong, said sexual abuse, neglect, physical and emotional abuse had very grave consequences on people and advised the nurses to be vigilant and help detect such for attention.
Insightful
One of the participants, a nurse from Effutu Senior High Technical School, Helena Crentsil, said the workshop had been insightful.
