TEENAGE PREGNANCY, THE WOE OF THE RURAL GIRL-CHILD

Women’s having healthier and happier life is enough reason for promoting girl child education because with education, girls have the skills, information and self-confidence that she needs to be better parents worker and citizen.

Education the girl child makes them contribute significantly to the development aspirations of the country in the future.

One statement made by the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki Moon during his speech at the first ever international day for the girl child rally moved my heart. He said ….. I quote: Investing in girls is a catalyst for changing the world……” We must all do our part to let girls be girls and not brides.

Government, parents, guardians and individual citizen should help fight for this course……because we all have a role to play in educating the girl child. We should remember the voice of our own Dr. Aggrey ...”IF YOU EDUCATE A MAN, YOU EDUCATE AN INDIVIDUAL BUT IF YOU EDUCATE A WOMAN, YOU EDUCATE THE WHOLE NATION.”

On the other hand one major problem that is confronting this country nowadays is teenage pregnancy. In the olden days, this problem was mostly non existent due to the prevalence of culture norms like BRAGORO among the Akans. Such rules forbade premarital sex and any violation attracted severe punishment like out right banishment.

Teenage pregnancy is pregnancy in human females under the age of 20. A girl can become pregnant from sexual intercourse after she has began to ovulate which can be before her first menstruation period(menarche), but  usually occurs after the onset of her periods. In well-nourished girls, menarche usually takes place at the age of 12 or 13.

In Ghana, females represent 51.2 per cent of the entire population of almost 25 million whereas adolescents represent 22.4 per cent of the total population. The rate of teenage pregnancy in Ghana are high; of all births registered in the country in 2018, 30 percent were by adolescents ,and 14 per cent of adolescents aged between 15 and 19 years had begun childbearing.

Pregnant teenagers face many of the same obstetrics issues as other women. There are however, additional medical concerns for pregnant girls aged under 15, who are less likely to have become physically developed enough to sustain a healthy pregnancy or to give birth.

Many causes are responsible for the rise in the rate of this socioeconomic problem. Extreme poverty is one of the major causes of teenage pregnancy. The economy of this country is in the woods and as a result of that many industries have collapsed. It is therefore not surprising there is wide spread and massive unemployment in this country. Many parents cannot cater for the needs of their children. The teenage girls in this poverty stricken class almost always indulge in sex in order to make ends meet. Unfortunately a large number of them become pregnant.

Another important cause to which teenage pregnancy can be attributed is peer pressure. Morally corrupt girls usually exercise a lot of influence over their friends and mates who are naïve and gullible. The former usually display the money and personal effects they obtain from their boy-friends who are sometimes as old as their fathers to then envy and admiration of the latter. The morally rotten girls therefore have no difficulty at all in persuading their good friends to abandon their life of chastity and become promiscuous. A lot of the girls are eventually faced with the problem of teenage pregnancy.

The effects of teenage pregnancy are frightening, to say the least. Many of the victims go in for illegal abortions at the hands of quack doctors. The reproductive organs at a large number of these girls are damaged for the rest of their lives. In other words, they become barren. They become liabilities. They worsen the unemployment situation. In order to survive, a lot of them get involved in social vices like armed robbery, prostitution and drug-trafficking. Biological effects of age risk of low birth weight, premature labor, anemia and pre-eclampsia.

It is not possible to eliminate teenage pregnancy from our society, but we must make strenuous efforts to reduce it to its barest minimum. The government should create adequate jobs for the masses of the people. The government must work very hard to revive the ailing economy.

Both parents and teachers must expose the students to comprehensive or enough sex education and access to birth control.

In a nut shell I will say these are some of the reasons why girl child education is important as to teenage pregnancy:

1.  Increased literacy: offering all children education will prop up literacy rates, pushing forward development in struggling regions.
2.  Safe sex:A girl who complete primary school in three times less likely to contract HIV.With these statistics in mind, The world Bank calls education a “window of hope’’ in preventing the spread of AIDS among today’s children.
3. Poverty Reduction: When women gets power to education they goes on participate in business and economic activity which reduce poverty.
4. Smaller Families: women with secondary education or higher have an average of three children. Counterparts with on education have an average of seven children
5. Thriving Babies: According to the United Nation Girls’ Education initiative, children of educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of five.
6. Human Trafficking: Women are most vulnerable to trafficking when they are under-educated and poor, says the United Nations inter-Agency project on human trafficking.
7. Political Representation: Across the globe, women are under represented as voters and restricted from political involvement.
8. Later Weddings: As suggested by the United Nations population fund, one in every three girls is married before reaching the age of 18.In a religion where a girl receives seven or more years of education, the wedding date is delayed by four years.
9. Income Potential: According to the United Nation Education, scientific and cultural Organization, also known as UNESCO, a single year of primary education has shown to increase a girl’s wages later in life by 20 percent.
10. Thriving GDP: GDP soars or increase when girls also go to school.

I have no doubt in my mind that if there measure are applied and realized the problem of girl child education will be improved and teenage pregnancy will be minimized drastically.

CENTER FOR INTEGRATED RURAL AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT (CIRCDev) is ready to prevent, fight and campaign against these problems of child labour, child molestation, child trafficking, street children, teenage pregnancy, child servitude, children on drug, children force into marriage and child right in the country.

Also promoting formal education through provision of scholarship for needy but brilliant students, provision of basic school needs, campaign for Girl-Child education and help school-drops get back to school/classroom and forming teens club in the various rural school to mentor, educate and support these children particularly the girl-child. 

 About the writer:

HAJARA SALIA is product of the University of Development Studies and the FINANCE DIRECTOR of CIRCDev. The plight of the rural girl-child is her much concerned. Due to her passion for the development of rural girl-child, Hajara has adopted two rural poor girls to provide them with their basic needs to enhance socioeconomic development.
Contact:
email:     hajara.salia@gmail.com 
                dof@circdev.org
  
Cell Phone:  +233243224737