About 144 teenage girls became pregnant in the first quarter of 2015.
According to the Northern Regional Director of Population Chief Alhassan Issahaku, the trend is very worrying hence, the need for community members and every well-meaning person to support steps designed to curb the situation.
[contextly_sidebar id=”tvt6DRsT7SihMFqFZN9tyd5Xx7tRDCos”]This became known when the Northern Regional Director of Population announced this at a stakeholders’ meeting on the Benefits and Patronage of Family Planning Contraceptives in Zabzugu, yesterday.
Teenage pregnancies has been a source of worry for stakeholders in the health sector.
In an interview with Citi News, Chief Alhassan Issahaku blamed parental neglect on the trend.
He also said “what is accounting for this is the inability to abstain from sex and not being eager to use contraceptives because the ages that we are looking at, we expected that parents should have given them enough family life education.”
“Some of them are not able to educate their children and so it leads them to loiter around, and they are a prey to many men and anything can happen.”
Chief Alhassan Issahaku explained that because of peer pressure, children are likely to be misinformed saying “that can lure them into unprotected sex, the consequence of unintended pregnancies.”
Meanwhile, on how to curb the menace, Chief Alhassan Issahaku called for teenage marriages to be disallowed and sex education be intensified.
A United Kingdom based non-governmental organisation- DFID/Future, has launched a 10.9 million pound project aimed at providing sexual reproductive health services to adolescent girls.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana