By mike owusu

Pregnancy amongst Ghanaian teenagers is a significant problem, and may actually be increasing. In 2011, 1102 young girls between 15 and 19 years of age gave birth in the Atwima-Nwbiagya District, according to Dr Samuel Osei, district director of Ghana Health Services. (Ghana News Agency, January 20, 2012) In the Central region, 14,000 teenagers got pregnant last year, representing a 62 percent increase over the previous year. (Daily Graphic-May 10, 2013)

Historically, teenage pregnancy in Ghana was not seen as a “problem” at all, as most girls married soon after puberty, and puberty typically occurred at a later age than it does now. In modern Ghana, if young people wish to finish secondary school, they will likely be sexually mature for several years before marrying. What is the best way for them to avoid pregnancy during this time?

When attempting to address this issue, it may be helpful to look at the examples of other countries that have successfully reduced this problem. At 2.9 births per 1000 teenaged women, South Korea has the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the world. Also in the top 5 is the Netherlands, with 6.2 births per 1000. (Innocenti Report Card No. 3, UNICEF, July 2001. Page 4)

Because of vastly different cultural and economic contexts, it is not possible to find one set of policies that works in every country. South Korea’s low teen pregnancy rates apparently are mostly due to a set of traditional values about sexuality that has not yet been eroded by modern life. (Innocenti, page 18) Young people are also kept busy, and are closely supervised and controlled by their parents and other authority figures. Sex continues to be a taboo topic of conversation, and sex education in schools is very limited. In contrast, in the Netherlands, attitudes towards sexuality are very liberal and open, and sex education is well-established in the school curriculum. Sex education starts before children are old enough to be embarrassed by the subject, and includes information on effective birth control. (Innocenti, page 21)

Is there anything Ghana can learn and apply from these examples? When talking to teens about sex, a society can chooseeither to foster a set of traditional values in which people abstain from premarital sex, or to accept that at least some teenagers are going to have sex and educate them to avoid pregnancy through the use of birth control. Clearly, many teenagers are sexually active in Ghana now. It seems unlikely that any amount of advice from their elders can completelyreverse this trend unless those elders also have the means to enforce their moral choices. This would be an unrealistically huge task, involving not only supervising the teens themselves, but also controlling the highly sexual messages teens receive from media such as television, popular music, and the internet. Also, prescribing to teens (especially girls) that abstinence until marriage is the only acceptable choice is simply another way of telling them that they have no choice – which is not a good way to foster the self-confidence they will need to stand up to unwanted sexual advances.

Sex education must include accurate information about how to obtain and use birth control if it is going to prevent teen pregnancy. But it need not occur in a moral vacuum. Young people can still benefit from advice about behaving responsibly, and waiting until they are physically and emotionally mature before having sex. Comprehensive sex education, including medically accurate information about pregnancy and birth control (including condoms), and advice on the benefits of abstinence, has been shown to be effective at reducing high-risk sexual behaviour among teens throughout the world. (Kirby D, et al. Sex and HIV Education Programs: Their Impact on Sexual Behaviors of Young People Throughout the World, Journal of Adolescent Health, 2007 (40):206–217.) Also, there is no evidence that this kind of education encourages young people to become sexually active at an earlier age. If Ghana is looking for models, comprehensive sex education programs exist in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper, A Critical Examination of Comprehensive Sex Educations Programmes Targeting Girls Between the Ages of 14-18, in Kenya, East Africa, by KafuliAgbemenu, MPH, evaluates and compares five different programs in Kenya that were still active as of 2009. The programs evaluated include school curricula, community programs, and peer counselling. Agbemenu’s research makes it clear that education of teens is only one part of what is needed to prevent teen pregnancies: the whole community has to be on board in order to insure that young people have access to the information and resources that they need. Still, educating teens about sex, family planning, and disease preventioncan begin the process of addressing the new realities that the current generation of youth are facing in modern Africa.

THE WRITER IS THE PROJECT COORDINATOR,LIGHT FOR CHILDREN

Lightforchildren@yahoo.com