Volta Region: Forum on reproductive health, domestic abuse organised for young women

The Volta Regional office of the Department of Gender has rolled out series of forums on reproductive health and domestic abuse for young girls in apprenticeship and their mistresses in some selected communities in the Volta Region.

The initiative seeks to curb teenage pregnancy and violence against women which are on the increase in those communities.

At one of such forums, the Volta Regional Director of Department of Gender, Thywill Eyra Kpe said the target is to educate especially vulnerable women on critical issues that affect them to enable them find solutions.

The 120 Participants were drawn from Dzemeni in the South Dayi District.

The forum was to sensitize the girls and artisans on topics such as Sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), child marriage, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, family planning, child trafficking, the implications and consequences of teenage pregnancy, among others.

 

The Volta Regional Director for the Department of Gender, Thywill Eyra Kpe said early sexual activity results in unwanted pregnancies which often cut short their aspirations.

 

She stressed the need for young ones to abstain from premarital sex and focus on their education to enable them achieve their goals.

 

“We realized that the statistics on adolescent pregnancy is very high, however the out of school statistics do not correlate with the general statistics from the Ghana Health Service therefore, we realized that the were lots of young girls who are in apprenticeship, who are out of school that are also getting pregnant, So this program was targeted at reaching every young, vulnerable person especially, those who are learning trades, artisans who may not have that opportunity to get information on their sexual and reproductive health and rights, on issues of Sexual and gender based violence and also on issues of family planning and contraceptives” she said.

 

“We are expecting that with the knowledge and the skills they will acquire they will be able to delay pregnancy, marriage and childbirth until at least they have acquired some skills to take care of themselves and the children they will give birth to” she added.

 

 

The Public Health Nurse at the Kpeve Health Directorate, Senam Fiagbenya who took the participants through family planning and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases bemoaned the increasing rate of teenage pregnancy in the district and encouraged them to protect themselves or consider family planning if they cannot abstain from sex to avoid unwanted pregnancy.

 

“Adolescents need to abstain from sex until they are grown up and also to those who are sexually active they have to access family planning if they can’t abstain. In the district, we realized that our teenage pregnancy rate is increasing. As at half of this year we were at 17 percent which is alarming” she said.

The engagement which was funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is part of its global program to end child marriage.