15 school girls aged between 14 and 16 years, in Pokrom in the Akuapem South District of the Eastern Region, who admitted that they cannot abstain from pre-marital sex have undergone jadelle method of family planning to protect them from unwanted pregnancies.
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15 School Girls Who Can’t Abstain From Sex Undergo Family Planning
15 school girls who admitted that they cannot abstain from pre-marital sex have undergone jadelle method of family planning.
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According to the Senior Staff Midwife at Pokrom Health Center, Wendylove Ofori Teenage pregnancy has been on the upward surge in the community forcing the health officials to develop various strategies to help curb the phenomenon.
One of such strategies by the Pokrom Health Officials was the formation of adolescent clubs to educate the teenagers on adolescent reproductive health; however, the menace continues to increase.
She said, in 2014, a total of 71 teenage pregnancies were recorded in the community with some having safe delivery while about 15 had their pregnancies terminated due to health factors.
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According to her, this situation can be attributed to irresponsible parenting and extreme poverty level in the community, which have forced many young girls to depend on young men in the community for survival, which results in their being pregnant.
The Senior Midwife stressed that, a lot of reproductive health education programme have been rolled out to help reduce the menace; however, in the interim, parents are being encouraged to advise their children, who are reluctant to abstain from sexual intercourse, to patronize family planning in which 15 young girls were subjected to jadelle method.
She added that, the support of traditional leaders, opinion leaders and Churches in the community have been solicited to help reduce the incident of teenage pregnancies being recorded.
She appealed for the support of Non-Governmental Organizations and philanthropists to support their adolescent clubs to ensure its sustainability.
She also appealed for replacement of its defunct generator that broke down years ago to help in their work effectively in the evening since they resort to the use of torchlight whenever there is power outage in the community in delivering service to their clients despite the threat of snakes and scorpions in the environment.
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