Under-15s engaging in sex - GHS worried
One out of 10 adolescent girls and one out of seven adolescent boys engage in sexual intercourse before the age of 15, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said.
Unfortunately, it said, half of adolescents who were sexually active had sex without any contraception even when such interventions were readily available.
Each year, adolescents accounted for 10 per cent of antenatal registrants, the GHS added, and that uptake of emergency contraception continued to rise in most of the populous regions of the country, often at the expense of condom use.
The Deputy Director of the Family Health Division of the GHS, Dr Chris Opoku Fofie, who disclosed this last Wednesday at the opening of the fourth Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) Summit in Accra, said among sexually active adolescents, the unmet need for family planning or contraceptives remained alarmingly high at 51 per cent, while adolescent pregnancy rates had stagnated around 10 per cent in recent years.
Dr Fofie, who was speaking on behalf of the Director General of GHS, Dr Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, said the GHS had doubled the use of emergency contraceptions among adolescent girls in populous regions such as the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions.
He said data had proven that adolescents often used emergency contraception instead of condom.
Despite this, he said, the Ministry of Education (MOE) strongly advocated abstinence in schools, thereby removing the opportunity to talk to schools about family planning or sexual education.
Dr Fofie, however, said there was cause for optimism, explaining that with 76 per cent of secondary school-age adolescents enrolling in school, the education system provided a powerful platform to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and values they needed to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.
The event was organised by the National Population Council (NPC).
The NPC since 2016 has organised the Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Summit.
Referencing the 2021 Population and Housing Census, the NPC said Ghana had a predominantly young population, with over 70 per cent of its residents under the age of 35.
Adolescents and young people aged 15 to 24 make up approximately 20 per cent of the population.
The Education Management Information System (EMIS) data of the Ministry of Education indicated that there was a high number of pregnancies among students.
From the data, the incidence of pregnancies recorded in schools for the 2020/2021; 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 academic years were 6,476; 8,438 and 8,805 respectively.
The 2023 Ghana AIDS Commission HIV Estimates indicated that Ghana had an estimated 334,095 people living with HIV (PLHIV) across all age groups.
Among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years, 16,381 were living with HIV, while 33,245 young people aged 15 to 24 years were affected.
Teenage pregnancies and new HIV infections among adolescents and young people, according to the NPC, presented significant barriers to national development, as they directly impacted the health, education and socioeconomic prospects of the youthful population.
The goal of the summit was, therefore, to trigger action among policy makers and implementers to enhance young people’s access to adolescent sexual reproductive health information and services.
The objectives were to provide a platform for stakeholders to discuss and analyse the shared risk factors contributing to both teenage pregnancy and new HIV infections among young people, and to identify collaborative strategies for reducing their impact; strengthen the voices of adolescents and young people in the design of initiatives and interventions for addressing teenage pregnancy and preventing HIV new infections; and to trigger evidence-based actions among decision makers and programme implementers.
Affirmation
Dr Akoriyea reaffirmed the commitment of the GHS to work hand-in-hand with the NPC, government agencies, civil society, development partners and communities to advance adolescent health.
The acting Executive Director of the NPC, Angelina Osei Kodua-Nyanor, said more than one-third of the country’s population was between the ages of 10 and 24 years, which presented both a tremendous opportunity and significant responsibility.
She said if young people were healthy, had education and were empowered, they could drive economic growth, innovation and national development, but if their needs were neglected, the consequences would be felt across generations.
Demographic dividends
The Deputy UNFPA Representative in Ghana, Dr Emmily Naphambo, said young people represented Ghana's demographic dividends, and held the key to the country's economic growth, innovation and development.
She called for prioritisation of school-based sexual and reproductive health services and also for governments and different partners to strengthen reproductive health education for young people.
The National Project Officer of UNESCO,Ghana, Urban Akagwire, expressed UNESCO’s commitment to empowering young people in Ghana and across sub-Saharan Africa to specifically achieve positive health, education and gender equality outcomes.
The Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, Dr Kharmacelle Prosper Akanbong, said when a young person got pregnant prematurely, or fought HIV without support, educational attainment was often disrupted, explaining that by strengthening reproductive health education and creating supportive school environments, young people were helped to remain in school, completed their education and realised their full potentials.
Other speakers at the programme that attracted the participation of schoolchildren, policy makers, among others, were the Country Director of DKT International, the Executive Director of the PPAG and the Council Chair of NPC, Dr Angela El-Adas.
