Stop having sex in the presence of children – NGO advises parents

Parents have been advised to desist from having sexual intercourse in the presence of their children in the same room.

The Chief Executive Officer of “As I Grow” (AIG), a nonprofit organization, Debrah Bekoe Isaac explained that many Ghanaian parents especially those in rural areas sleep with their children in a single room until the children grow up to rent a room on their own.

Therefore, parents mostly have sexual intercourse in the presence of their children in a room at night presuming they are asleep.

He said multiple pieces of evidence indicate many children get awake during the act and see their parents having sexual intercourse creating memories of indecent exposure and fueling sexual curiosity among teenage children partly resulting in high teenage pregnancy.

Debrah Bekoe Isaac advised that "parents must have a separate room for their children, especially those above 10 years because having sexual intercourse in the presence of the children in the same room is something that must be discouraged because the children get to see their parents making love at night. All these have an effect on the sexual curiosity of the teenage child which pushes them to also engage in same”.

He said this when the NGO embarked on awareness creation on the teenage pregnancy menace with a street march at Abomayaw and Asempanaye, both remote rural communities in Asuogyaman District in Eastern Region as part of efforts to galvanize stakeholders' support to curb the menace.

Eastern Region is one of the regions in Ghana struggling to combat the high rate of teenage pregnancy cases.

Nearly 10,000 teenage pregnancies were recorded in the region in 2021.

Three hundred and twenty-one (321) of these cases were recorded in the Asuogyaman District

Rosemary Bukor, a resident of Asuogyaman District was impregnated right after completing JHS. She gave birth to her second child when she planned to go to Senior high school.

“I got pregnant after JHS but when I planned to further my education, the second one too came” She narrated.

The phenomenon has been blamed on irresponsible parenting fueled by poverty.

Headteacher of Abomayaw D/A basic school, Nathan Addison says education of many girls are being truncated by the rising teenage pregnancy cases.

The AIG also distributed School uniforms to the pupils many of whom were wearing tattered uniforms.