The Mfantseman Municipal Assembly has banned discotheques and leavers jam in the municipality.
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the area, Mr Kenneth Essuman, who made this known at an advocacy meeting with traditional councils and family heads at Mankessim last Wednesday, expressed concern about how “teenagers who are about to begin their education will gather in some dark alleys and engage in immoral activities and call themselves ‘leavers’.”
The programme was sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to spearhead advocacy on teenage pregnancy, sexual and gender-based violence and child marriage in the region.
“What are they leaving, basic education? So, what will those who complete tertiary education do? Jump from the last floor of their hostel,” the furious MCE stated.
Total ban
He recommended a total ban on all leavers jams across the country to stem the alarming rate of teenage pregnancy and child marriages in the country and urged traditional leaders to be the strong advocates for change.
Mr Essuman said a bar operator was recently summoned by the assembly for making his facilities available for the young boys and girls to engage in immoral behaviour at night.
He called on the traditional leaders not to settle rape cases at home but direct such incidents to the appropriate law quarters for redress.
He said the assembly spent GH¢18,000 in transporting Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates to their various centres throughout the period of writing their examination last academic year.
He added that the municipality took all those steps to guarantee the future of the young ones through education and urged them to reciprocate the gesture by being serious with their studies.
The Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Mrs Thywill Eyra Kpe, said the region was plagued with the incidence of child marriage mainly as a result of teenage pregnancy.
It is estimated that one out of every three girls (31.2 per cent) in the region either married or cohabits before age 18.
Child marriage
The situation, Mrs Kpe intimated, could not auger well for the human resource development of the families, communities, regions and the country as a whole.
She stated that “it does not only affect the career prospect of the girls, but also puts a strain on the national purse.”
She said although some modest gains were made in the fight to reduce teenage pregnancy, there still remained a lot of work to be done, since the figures remained very high.
Mrs Kpe drew the attention of the participants to the legal ramification of their actions as citizens.
She stressed that “if a man impregnates a child, then the laws of our land need to deal with the perpetrator.”
“We are, therefore, here to build networks to sustain our engagement with other members of the traditional councils and their communities to champion the reduction of teenage pregnancy and child marriage,” she said.
Source: Daily Graphic
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As we applaud you on what ever way to safeguard our young ones,its also important to look at the deeper course of these teenage pregnancy in the municipality than only ban on disco and leaver's jam.I believe the topmost problem which need our attention is how to make the municipal commercially active and variable which at large reduce poverty.Let me take Saltpond for example,The town when you visit during the working hours of Monday to Friday will make sad and fill pity for indigenous traders and how they are surviving,there is no work to engage the youth.Saltpond being the administrative head of the municipal have down play and disappointed by most of our politicians most promises made are fulfilled example is the nursing college which I think can go along way to boost the economy of the capital city of MFANTSEMAN MUNICIPALITY and the political mecca of Ghana as Prof Gyampo refs. This and many more we think off. I urge the Assembly to look out of the Box in making our municipality economically variable
This is a very lazy approach to solving the problem of teenagers misbehaving. Jams and proms are organised all over for school leavers and non of the immoral acts that have been mentioned above happen. They organisers will have to be tasked to provide adequate sequrity for everyone that attends their bash. If this ban is allowed to go ahead it will rather push organisers underground and the situation will be worse than what we had. After a stressfull time studying for exams they need to be allowed to let their head down. Please authorities you've all been there and know how it is find a better solution than what you've done
Big applaud to you people at the assembly. Your action is in the step of right direction, and l hope this initiative will spread all over the country to safeguard our youth from moral corruption. Some youth may not understand your action but time will tell them because we all have been youth before. God bless Mfantiman assembly.