The Ghana Education Service is to blame for the rise in teenage pregnancies and STDs, according to the chief executive officer of Care Love Foundations, who claims that advising students not to have sex has backfired.
Among other things, Agatha Johna stated this at the November 19, 2023, Care Love Foundations workshop in the Cape Coast-Central Region.
She named the Central Region specifically as one of the areas where teen pregnancy rates and STI rates are rising because the abstinence-from-sex approach has not been successful in producing the desired outcomes.
“GES should accept that their strategy, which is abstinence, has now worked, hence the increase in teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections among teenagers in this country. They need to accept that the policy has failed and needs a change,” rainbowradioonline.com quotes Johna as saying.
She feels that since the world has advanced to this point, telling teenagers not to have sex will no longer be effective; instead, they should be taught self-defense techniques for when they do engage in sexual activity.
“They need to review their strategy, move from abstinence to protection, and teach the kids how to properly use condoms to prevent teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections,” she recommended.
In connection with this, data from the Ghana AIDS Commission showed that women make up two thirds of newly diagnosed HIV cases in Ghana.
As per the 2022 National and Sub-National HIV/AIDS estimates and forecasts, Ghana recorded 16,574 new cases of HIV infection, with 10,927 female cases and 5,647 male cases.
According to the most recent data on teenage pregnancies, Ghana has not succeeded in reducing adolescent pregnancies by the year 2022, as reported by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
The government set a target of 12% for teenage pregnancy in 2022 in its Health Sector Development Plan for 2022 to 2025, a significant decrease from the 14% recorded in 2014.
But according to the GSS, the number of adolescent pregnancies rose to 15.2% in 2022.
At the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey presentation on Monday, June 5, 2023, at the Windy Lodge Hotel, Beach Site in Winneba, Central Region, government statistician professor Samuel Kwabena Anim revealed the data.
