Discuss reproductive health issues with adolescents
Queen mothers in Accra have stressed the need for school authorities and community leaders to allow schoolchildren to be educated on sexual health and reproductive issues.
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During separate interviews with some queen mothers in Accra at a two-day workshop on adolescent health reproductive issues, they said school authorities were sometimes reluctant to give approval for students to be educated on their sexual reproductive health because they did not feel comfortable with the topic.
“When you tell them the topic is for instance on unsafe abortion, the teachers panic. They fear we are going to teach them how to terminate pregnancies,” the Adabraka Mannye, Naa Korkor Aadzieoyi I, stated.
Naa Aadzieoyi I, who has been organising various programmes on adolescent health issues for schoolchildren in her area, lamented that educating the schoolchildren about sex and its related topics did not mean that they were teaching them to engage in sexual relationships.
“They fear we are going to teach them how to have abortions but adolescent sexual health education means more than that - it is about how young people clean their bodies, good personal hygiene and how you carry yourself as a young person,” she emphasised.
She said she had observed that topics on adolescent reproductive health are interesting to the schoolchildren so much that after the outreach programmes, they approach her and tell her things which sometimes shock her.
For her part, the Queen mother of Mayera in the Ga West District, Nana Obuobin I, complained that she was once supposed to address adolescents but the assemblyman called to plead with her not to talk on unsafe abortion.
She said through the awareness programmes she had organised for adolescents on their sexual health and reproductive issues, she had realised that the youngsters were now a bit more comfortable to approach her with their problems.
Earlier in her address, Ms Deborah Kwablah advised the media to watch the kind of stories they publish about adolescents in order not to compromise their future.
The two-day workshop was attended by media personnel, queen mothers and stakeholders in the adolescent sexual health reproductive field.