GES advises girls against early sex
A Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES) Madam Grace Lorlor Abla Bonuedi, has advised girls to desist from early sex so as not to ruin their lives to compound their poverty cycle.
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She said early initiation of sexual intercourse placed adolescents, particularly females, at an elevated risk of being involved in an unplanned pregnancy, acquiring HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) with some negative social and psychological outcomes.
She said teenagers were also at a higher risk of death due to pregnancy-related complications.
According to her, the adverse social outcomes of adolescent sex include: stigmatisation by peers and adults, pregnancy, interruption of education and socio-economic deprivation.
Madam Bonuedi made these remarks at a programme at Kadjebi in the Volta Region to mark the celebration of this year’s International Day of the Girl-Child, which involved pupils drawn from five basic schools in the district.
The District Office of the Ghana Education Service (GES) marked the event on the theme: “The power of the adolescent girl: Vision 2030”, to highlight the need for everyone to help achieve gender equality and empower all women and girl by the end of year 2030.
Linking SDGs
Madam Bonuedi said it would be difficult to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, which encouraged gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, if women and girls issues were not taken seriously by local and national policy makers.
She also called on parents to provide their children with basic needs to prevent them from falling prey to sexual abuse, harassments and social vices.
The Kadjebi District Girls’ Education Officer, Madam Dorcas Ama Obeng, said female education would prop up literacy rate, pushing forward development in struggling regions, as out of 163 million illiterate youth across the globe, nearly 63 per cent were females, thus, “offering all children education would increase literacy”.