Queen mothers discuss teenage pregnancy at Akosombo
Queen Mothers across the country have converged at Akosombo in the Eastern Region, to brainstorm on how to curb the teenage pregnancy scourge in the country.
The meeting comes amid the commemoration of this year’s International Day of the Girl Child on the theme: “Digital generation, our generation.”
The one-day facilitation workshop was on the theme “Recognising traditional leaders, especially queen mothers as strong influences and critical partners in CUBE CONVOS Facilitation”.
The forum was facilitated by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Obaapa Development Foundation, and chaired by the Paramount Queen Mother of the Akwamu Traditional Area, Nana Afrakoma II.
The CUBE CONVO is an innovative strategy to reach adolescent girls in communities, schools via virtual platforms with empowering messages and accurate sexual and reproductive health information.
The girl-child programme is focused on assertiveness, menstrual health, teenage pregnancy prevention and management and sexual and gender-based violence prevention.
Opening the workshop, here in Akosombo, on Saturday, the National Programme Analyst for Communication, Partnership and Resource Mobilisation at the UNFPA Ghana, Dr Doris Aglobitse, urged queens mothers to develop innovative ways of communicating messages to adolescents, to curb the teenage pregnancy scourge in the country.
She said the need for queen mothers to do more has become imperative because in 2020 alone, 109,888 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 were pregnant.
Dr Aglobitse said this involved 2,865 girls between 10 to 14 years and 107,023 girls between 15 and 19 ages, according to Ghana Health Service statistics.
“We cannot sit down and look on unconcerned. We have to do something. We have been doing things all these years but we must increase our efforts. It can’t be business as usual.
“The way things are going, if we don’t find solutions, we will have no Ghana. Children will be having children and we will no values and at the end of it, Ghana will be lost. So let’s go out there and find innovative ways to address this. Our language is of the old. Let’s engage them and understand them because we have a responsibility,” she charged the participants.
Nana Afrakoma II said the statistics on teenage pregnancy was frightening and that immediate steps were needed to bring the situation under control.
“We have work to do because our children have given us work. Let us all put in our best and when we do that, we will reduce the numbers,” she said.
Sharing what her outfit was doing to control the situation in her area, Nana Afrakoma II said she has engaged all Queen Mothers under her jurisdiction to educate young people on teenage pregnancy.
Nana Afrakoma II(seated with legs on animal skin), next to her is Dr Aglobitse and queen mothers.
FROM JULIUS YAO PETETSI, AKOSOMBO
