Tema, Jan. 12, - The Paramount
Queen Mother of Ningo, has asked queen mothers and opinion leaders to join in
the fight to dissuade teenage girls from indulging in sexual impropriety.
“I want to use this medium to
appeal to the queen mothers and opinion leaders; we should get involve; we
should educate our girls; the girls are our future. If we are not around they
would be there for us,” she said.
Naana Dugbakuwor Dugba said this
in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of the Public
Hearing on the Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) of the Ningo Prampram
District Assembly (NPDA) to transform the District into an industrial and
economic zone within Greater Accra.
Reacting to the high HIV/AIDS
prevalence and teenage pregnancy rate as presented by the planning officer of
the District during the hearing, she said, “The issue of teenage pregnancy is
really becoming a torn in our flesh.”
She observed how those in
authority could not control the girls because “sometimes you try to talk to
them and it ends up differently, but we are trying our best.”
She added that, “We collaborate
with some nurses and teachers to educate them to know the consequences. It gets
to a stage where you need to know about your sex, what sex is and what it would
do to you as a teenager.”
She said even though the
prevalence rate had been on the rise, much education was going on so they were
gradually gaining control over it.
She however observed that sexual
indiscretion was not only peculiar to the Ningo Prampram District “but it’s
something that cuts across the various communities in the nation, and therefore
the need to come together as queen mothers to fight it.”
She said that even though parents
were trying to protect their girls, it was necessary for them to educate their
children concerning sex at home, adding that “it’s not supposed to be a taboo
to talk about sex with our girls, so they will know what to do and prevent
teenage pregnancy.”
The District Chief Executive
(DCE) of Ningo Prampram, Mr. Jonathan Teye Doku, explained that if HIV and
teenage pregnancy prevalence rate were high in the District, it did not mean
the phenomenon was on the ascendency in the District, “But we have resolved to
do whatever we will to get the prevalence rate down.”
He added that, “Ningo Prampram
has become a cosmopolitan area with a lot of people moving in so it is not as
if it is the natives only who represent the high prevalent rate, but there are
a lot of people from outside the District who contribute to the figures due to
the fast growing nature of the District.”
It was estimated by the planning
officer that HIV infection rate kept rising with 190, 200 and 308 cases in
2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Additionally, teenage pregnancy
in the District was 13.5% higher than the national 11.8% and the Regional
average of 6.1
GNA
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