The Member of Parliament for North Dayi, Joycelyn Tetteh, has called on parents to educate their wards on the use of condoms in order to curb the rising rate of teenage pregnancies in the country.
According to her, it is wrong to assume that children are ignorant of what sex is, insisting it is time to introduce sex education in homes.
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Delivering a speech on the floor of Parliament, the MP bemoaned the rising cases of teenage pregnancy recorded across the country.
Mrs. Tetteh, therefore, called on both parents and teachers to begin preaching the use of the condoms to their wards and pupils respectively.
In her view, inasmuch as it is good to preach abstinence, so is it equally in place to introduce young ones to the use to condoms in order to reduce teenage pregnancy cases.
“Sex education in our basic schools must be prioritised and taught. Parents must know and ought to be interested in the extracurricular activities of their children, especially the teenage ones. We must begin as a country to teach safer sex practices amongst the youth instead of assuming that our children are ignorant of sex as an act and sexuality as a topic,” she stated.
“Condom use must be mentioned while preaching the abstinence we desire as parents and teachers. The effort required to address this social problem of huge significance can only be effective if it is multi-faceted.
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“The approach to solving this problem must acknowledge the role of parents, teachers, community leaders, chiefs and Queen mothers, religious leaders as well as politicians, myself and every Member of Parliament included.”
The lawmaker further called for measures to be put in place to ensure that teenage girls who get pregnant are reintegrated into school.
According to her, getting pregnant teenage girls back into school is as important as the quest to prevent teenage pregnancy itself.
“As we discuss innovative ways to prevent our youth, particularly teenage girls from getting pregnant, we must concurrently find ways of integrating pregnant girls into our schools when they deliver the babies they carry,” Mrs. Tetteh asserted.
“Every effort to get girls back to school after delivery is as important as the effort made at preventing the pregnancy in the first place. The pregnant teenager is not the problem; the problem is the factors that lead to the pregnancy. That is why we must focus our energies on addressing those factors rather than isolating pregnant teenagers for condemnation.”