Intensify sex education for adolescents — PPAG
The Zonal Manager of the southern zone of Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), Nana Amma Oforiwaa Sam, has urged parents to provide young females with information on sexuality through sex education.
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She said the lack of sex education by parents for the youth accounted for the numerous cases of illegal abortions among adolescent girls and young adults.
At a forum organised by Youth Action Movement (YAM), a youth wing of PPAG in Accra on Friday, she disclosed that 11 per cent of maternal deaths resulted from unsafe abortions.
The forum by YAM was meant to discuss the results of the “Peer-to-Peer” project, an initiative to educate young females on the adverse effects of unsafe abortions and the need to use effective family planning methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Case of females in tertiary institutions
She said the initiative, carried out among some females in a tertiary institution in Accra, was against the backdrop of a research conducted in 2014 which revealed that some female students of the institution were involved in unsafe abortions.
“The research in 2014 showed that out of the 142 female students used as the sample size, 66 of them had engaged in unsafe abortion at least once. Some of them engaged the services of mallams, fake doctors, or used crude materials on their own to terminate the pregnancies,” she said.
Ms Sam urged young females to abstain from unprotected sex since that would expose them to unwanted pregnancies.
She said abortion was permissible in the country under certain situations and urged females to desist from using unorthodox methods which could lead to death or health complications.
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“The laws on abortion in the country are liberal. For instance, if a pregnancy is likely to pose danger to the health of the mother, it could be aborted by qualified personnel in a safe medical environment,” she said.
The National Coordinator of YAM, Mr Wise Alorvi, said the group was focused on providing young females with information on their sexual lifestyle to reduce the number of abortion-related deaths.
A YAM Project volunteer, Ms Akosua Adjepong, advised young women to have attitudinal change, and respond positively to efforts by the group to provide them with the information that would guide them.