Adolescents getting pregnant left, right, centre worrying: Dr. Afisah Zakariah

The rate at which adolescents in Ghana are getting pregnant left, right, centre worrying to say the least. Very often these girls are impregnated by adult males who are expected to be responsible and must know better.

In a speech read on behalf of the Chief Director of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr. Afisah Zakariah, she said the trend of adolescent pregnancies recorded in Ghana is not just worrying but also a big concern especially when stakeholders continue to institute intervention programmes that should yield positive results.

She stated that adolescent pregnancies were, therefore, a critical concern that had lifetime ramifications on the life, health, wealth and well-being of the adolescents, their children, families, communities, and the country at large.

“Girls are empowered by education not only because it opens doors to new opportunities, but also because it has a ripple effect throughout the family and society,” she said.

The above concerns were the topical issues addressed along with strategies to combat the menace at the just ended 2nd Bi-Annual Tracking meeting on the implementation of the Adolescent Pregnancy Strategy in Accra.

At the conference, Associate Professor of the Regional Institute for Population Studies at the University of Ghana, Prof. Stephen Owusu Kwankye there was the need for collaboration and alliance to merge resources, including human resources to achieve the Adolescent Pregnancy Strategy.

He added that through collaboration, resources can be pulled together and used more efficiently implement objectives towards reducing teenage pregnancy among adolescent girls.

The objectives are to

1. Empower adolescents to make choices regarding their sexual lives.
2. Enable them to prevent early and unplanned pregnancies.
3. Promote institutional and community engagement to prevent adolescent pregnancy.
4. Ensure that adolescents, especially the sexually active ones, had access to youth friendly and gender-sensitive sexual and reproductive health information and services.

READ:How Can She Be Pregnant? We Used Condoms – Young Man Alleges

Prof. Kwankye also advised stakeholders who had issues with donor partners in regard to where to operate and implement their strategies to present a good plan explaining why they needed to implement in those areas, so their thoughts could be considered.