Relevance of sharing information on adolescent sexual reproduction
Young boys and girls lack information about their sexual lives because the Ghanaian society frowns on the sharing of such information with young children.
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However, adolescents need the right information and knowledge to make informed decisions concerning their sexual and reproductive health.
Health experts maintain that the fact that about 14 per cent of adolescents aged between 15 to19 years have began childbearing, should be of a serious concern to Ghana.
Teenage pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy has become a major global health concern with an alarming figure of approximately 16 million adolescent girls aged between 15 to 19 years giving birth each year, and this constitutes about 11 per cent of all births worldwide.
Statistics from the Ghana Health Service indicate that about 750,000 teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 became pregnant in 2014, with the Central Region recording the highest.
Delivering the keynote address at the opening ceremony of a workshop on adolescent sexual and reproductive health at the University of Ghana in Accra last Monday, the
Dean of the School of Public Health of the University of Ghana, Prof. Richard Adanu, stated that issues of adolescent sexual and reproductive health should be of great concern to the society.
He pointed out that the issue, which had over the years been ignored, could no longer be overlooked considering the challenges associated with its neglect.
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Situation in three regions
“In three regions of Ghana -Brong Ahafo, Central and Volta regions- one in five of all adolescent girls aged 15-19 years living in rural areas are either pregnant or already have children,” he added.
The 10-day training course is being organised by the Palladium, formerly known as Futures Group Europe, a management consulting firm focusing on emerging markets around the world, and funded by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom (DFID).
Facilitated by the University of Ghana School of Public Health and the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, 30 people are participating in the workshop.
The programme, meant for officials of government institutions including the Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service, National Population Council and the National
Youth Authority, is to enable participants to undertake adolescent, sexual reproductive health programme, implementation, monitoring and evaluation exercises.
The workshop forms part of the DFID-funded three-year Adolescent Health Programme which started in 2014 and expected to end in 2017.
The project is intended to strengthen the capacity of government to manage, implement and expand cost effective adolescent reproductive health programming at the national, regional and district levels.
Challenges
He mentioned that early pregnancy, difficulty in accessing information and contraceptives, were some of the challenges adolescents faced as a result of neglect of the issues.
Prof. Adanu said the challenges facing adolescent had been compounded by political, economic and socio-cultural factors which restricted the delivery of information and services.
Hence, he said, the three- year programme which had already given grants to 37 beneficiary institutions to help reduce the prevalence of adolescent and sexual reproductive health challenges.
He added that the training was to equip the officials with all relevant aspects of adolescent reproductive health in order to facilitate a more uniform and improved practice for adolescent health service delivery in Ghana.
Project objective
The DFID Representative, Mr Shamwell Issah, said the objective of the project was to increase access to reproductive knowledge, information and service to adolescents.
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He urged healthcare providers to make reproductive health services accessible, including family planning, and also make the health facilities friendly for the adolescents.
The National Coordinator for School Health Education Programme of the Ghana Education Service, Mrs Kate Opoku, said adequate information related to adolescent sexual reproduction was very important to adolescents because it affected their quality of education.