Pognaa Amamata Mumuni, the Queen Mother of Duori, a suburb of Wa, has blamed the rampant incidents of teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse against children on poor parental control, care and child neglect.
She said some parents were shirking the responsibilities of protecting their children, especially females, from indulging in some social activities and giving them excessive freedom to stay outside of the home even during odd hours.
“Most of the children that get pregnant because their parents don’t care for them. In our interactions with some of the girls, they say anytime they want to go out they are not prevented, and they return anytime they want.
“Whether they eat or not or sleep in the house or not, their parents don’t care. Some even say men give them money to buy food,” Pognaa Mumuni explained.
The Queen Mother said this in Wa at the weekend during a sensitization programme for market women and traders at the Wa main market on the effect of child neglect, which had been one of the causes of the recent alleged defilement case in Wa.
It was organised by the Upper West Regional branch of the She Leads Social Movement (SLSM) in collaboration with the Queen Mothers’ Association in Wa as part of the She Leads project implementation in the region by the Community Aid for Rural Development (CARD-Ghana) in partnership with Plan International Ghana.
The sensitisation programme was also to drum home the need for parents to provide their girl children with basic needs such as sanitary pads to prevent them from seeking those needs from men.
Pognaa Mumuni, particularly blamed mothers for putting their female children in harm’s way as some traders left their homes for days in search of money without considering the welfare of their children, which led such children to engage in sexual relationships with men.
“Some mothers also push their girl children to men because those men give them GH₵20.00.
“They don’t care whether the girls are in school or not, their interest is the little money they get from the men, and this happens on the blind side of their husbands,” she observed.
Pognaa Mumuni explained that as part of efforts to curb teenage pregnancy, they had facilitated the formation of by-laws in the She Leads project communities and constituted community watchdog groups in those communities.
Miss Rufiatu Shaibu, a member of the SLSM, appealed to parents to see childcare as a collective responsibility of both parents.
She stressed the need for parents to educate their children on good menstrual hygiene management practices, especially for first-time menstruating girls.
She also urged parents to continually encourage their girl children to take up leadership roles in schools and in the communities.
Some of the market women, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), thanked the organizers of the programme, which they said was an eye opener to them and urged parents to take the protection of their children seriously.
