The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Sarah Adwoa Safo, has said data from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) District Health Information Management System (DHIMS) reveals that the country recorded about 110,000 cases of teenage pregnancies in the year 2020.
She revealed this at the Bi-Annual tracking meeting on the Implementation of the Adolescent Pregnancy Strategy held on Wednesday, June 23, 2021.
The sector minister indicated that out of the total, 107,023 girls were between 15 and 19 years while 2,856 were between 10 and 14 years.
The Department of Gender in collaboration with other institutions developed a 5-year plan to address adolescent pregnancy in Ghana. The Strategic Plan has a mission to provide adolescents, especially girls, with the right information, knowledge, skills and services to protect them from unplanned pregnancies.
The meeting, which brought together relevant and key stakeholders aimed at tracking progress to ensure the objective of the plan is met.
Addressing Participants, the Director for Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mr. Mawutor Ablo on behalf of the Sector Minister, Hon. Sarah Adwoa Safo noted that the vulnerability of many girls to unplanned pregnancies and other reproductive health challenges require collaboration and concerted efforts by government and all stakeholders, to safeguard the rights and well-being of adolescent girls.
On her part, the Director for the Department of Gender, Madam Faustina Acheampong urged all and sundry especially parents to invest in their children’s education and encourage the girl-child to stay in school and also complete her education to become a responsible person to the family, nation and the world as a whole.
Miss Selina Owusu, the National Programme Analyst on Gender at UNFPA-GHANA called on stakeholders involved in tackling adolescent pregnancy in Ghana to invest more time and resources to create and implement robust mechanisms to protect, promote and enforce the human rights of vulnerable young girls.
