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| Sumaya |
A
senior officer at the Mion District Social Welfare and Community Development
Department, Iddrisu Alhassan Ganiyu has raised serious concern about the
alarming rate at which teenage pregnancies are being recorded in the district,
in spite of efforts by government to ensure enrolment and retention of girls in
school.
According
to him, an average of 30 to 40 teenage girls become pregnant in the district
every year and almost 90% of them did not get men to take responsibility for
their pregnancies.
Speaking
in an interview with Savannahnews at Mion in the Mion
District of the Northern Region, Mr. Ganiyu revealed that every year, an
estimated 15 to 20% of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE)
candidates in the district get pregnant or give birth to children even before
their final exams.
He
said that the Social Welfare and Community Development department had done its
assessments and could confirm that the rate of teenage pregnancy in the
district was prevalent in the rural parts of the Mion District.
He
said that the department with support from UNICEF had formed Community Child
Protection Teams to advocate on the dangers of teenage pregnancies, early or
force marriage and child trafficking among others.
Mr.
Iddrisu Alhassan Ganiyu indicated that the department had registered most of
the girls with teenage pregnancies and counseled them to go back to school
after birth.
He
revealed that the rate of teenage pregnancies was more alarming in the remotest
communities of the district, and that the men involved were mostly married men
already with plenty children.
Mr.
Ganiyu emphasized although the Social Welfare Department and the District
Directorate of the Ghana Education Service had put in place several measures to
curtail the situation, most parents in the district had neglected their
responsibilities and they know little or nothing about the welfare of their
children.
He
said that most of the teenage girls were being lured into bed or being deceived
by the men to exchange their “bodies with money and whatsApp phones”. “Every
girl nowadays wants to use whatsApp phone and because of that they easily fall
for those irresponsible but bragging men”.
He
asserted that most of the girls interviewed attested to the fact that they
accepted monies and gifts from those men because their parents always failed to
give them money for school or buy sanitary pads, panties and other items they
needed.
Savannahnews
in a visit to Mion encountered one
Sumaya Abdulai, a 13 year old girl who is already a mother of one year old baby
boy.
Sumaya
Abdulai is one of the many young teenage girls who are out of school due to
unplanned pregnancies. She dropped out of school at primary four (4) when her
father purportedly decided to give her out as a housemaid to a certain woman
for financial gain. Sumaya told Savannahnews that the man who made
her pregnant is a corn mill operator who has partially refused to accept
responsibility for her pregnancy.
According
to Sumaya, her dream was to become a professional doctor or nurse, but her
father’s decision to withdraw her from school has indeed cut short her future
ambitions.
She
asserted that her father before withdrawing her from school was not paying her
school fees, buying her books, dresses and was not even giving her money for
feeding, a situation, which according to her influenced her decision to accept
to be in secret relationship with the young man, who finally got her pregnant.
“When
I met him he told me he loves me and I told him that I was a small girl. But he
told me that he will not do anything with me and also promised to buy me mobile
phone which he really did including some dresses. I realized that he was good
to me and anytime I went to grind our corn he did not take money from me, so I
started visiting him and he also started sending for me and finally I slept
with him. When my father sent me to Kumasi to stay with that woman, I found out
after two months that I was three to four months pregnant so the woman brought
me back to my father. My parents asked me who was responsible and I mentioned
the guy. He told my parents that he cannot marry me but he will take care of
the child. But after I gave birth he has refused to fulfill that promise so it
is my mother who is supporting me”.
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| Mion DCE, Mankanda |
Sumaya
Abdulai in tears said that initially, she wanted to commit suicide by poisoning
herself and the unborn baby, because her friends were fond of mocking her and
her father was also fiercely demanding for her head.
She
intimated that her father was not worried about her future but rather because
she could not stay and labour or work as a housemaid to bring money to the
house.
Sumaya
who is still aiming to go back to school to pursue her future aspiration of
becoming a nurse or doctor asserted that she finally consoled herself after
realizing that she was not the only teenage girl who was pregnant in the
community.
Her
major concern now is about how to work to cater for her one year old child and
also gather some money to go back to school. “I
go to farm with my mother and help her to do her fried yam business before I
get food to eat everyday”.
Sumaya’s
mother, Madam Salamatu Yakubu (a petty trader) who is now supporting her and
the baby told Savannahnews that she was willing to send Sumaya back to school
but for now she did not have the money.
She
sadly confirmed the ordeal of little Sumaya since she became pregnant.
According to her, Sumaya’s pregnancy brought a lot of disgrace to her as a
mother but she duly blamed her husband for his refusal to equally cater for his
female children just as he did for his male children.
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