The Community Development Alliance (CDA) has observed this year’s International Day of the Girl Child in Wa with a call on parents to embrace their responsibility of caring for the basic needs of their children, especially girls.
It said some parents used poverty as an excuse to shirk their responsibilities of providing the basic needs of their children which was a major cause of teenage pregnancy.
Madam Mercy Dakogri, the Programmes Coordinator at CDA, who said this during the commemorative event, added that the situation was creating a huge gender gap between males and females and needed the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders including parents to address.
Madam Dakogri stressed that it was not enough to just produce children but to live up to expectation by nurturing those children to ensure they grow to become responsible people to contribute to society’s development.
She said the Day was to highlight the challenges girls faced, eliminate discriminatory practices against girls and to support and give them the right opportunity to excel.
Pognaa Amamata Mumuni, Queen Mother of Duori, advised the girls not to yield to the deception of men that “you are beautiful, I love you.
“The guys are deceiving you that you are beautiful; yes you are beautiful today but allow them to impregnate you.
Tomorrow they will not see you and praise you again. When you give birth you become old and they will not admire you again”.
Madam Saudatu Mohammed, the Executive Director of Life Again, said lack of sex education is a challenge some girls face.
She mentioned that Ghana “don’t have sex education in our schools and also at home parents don’t talk to their children about sex.
Even when girls see their menses mothers don’t talk to them to explain to them what it means and I believe fathers don’t even engage boys when they have their first wet dreams, explain to them what it means”.
Some survivors of teenage pregnancy shared their stories, the ordeal they went through and how they had overcome those challenges to encourage other girls not to fall victim to the snare of men.