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A survey conducted by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in 2012 on teenage pregnancy has revealed that about 750,000 teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 became pregnant in that year, with 14,000 of them coming from the Central Region. The Chief Justice, Justice Mrs Georgina Theodora Wood, disclosed this in a speech read on her behalf by a Court of Appeal judge, Mrs Justice Barbara Ackah Yensu, at the launch of the State of the World Population 2013 Report in Accra last week. The theme, �Motherhood in childhood: Facing the challenges of adolescent pregnancy�, was attended by a cross-section of the media, representatives of United Nations bodies, interest groups and the Kayayei Association in Accra. Mrs Justice Wood stressed the need to empower girls to enable them to make informed decisions in and for their lives. She said adolescents were the future and that depending on the opportunities available to them and the choices they made during their time, �they can become empowered and active adults or be neglected and rooted in poverty�. She, therefore, charged parents, religious and opinion leaders to create the right environment for children to grow and develop properly. Situation globally Mrs Justice Wood reiterated the fact that millions of girls worldwide were coerced into unwanted sex or marriage, thereby exposing them to unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions and dangerous childbirth. She said statistics available indicated that 70,000 adolescent deaths occurred annually from complications in pregnancy and childbirth in developing countries. The Report The report revealed that 20,000 girls below the age 18 give birth in developing countries daily, with nine in 10 of them occurring within marriage or a union. It said pregnancy had major consequences on a girl�s health, since health problems were more likely if she became pregnant too soon after reaching puberty. In a welcoming address, the UNFPA Representative, Dr Bernard Coquelin, stressed the fact that teenage pregnancies affected girls negatively when it came to health, education, attainment and basic rights. �The girls need a safe and healthy transition into adulthood, but in some cases this is not the reality,� he said, adding that �in many parts of the world, adolescents - especially girls - may be taken out of school, coerced into unwanted sex, subjected to early and forced marriage, bear unwanted pregnancies, experience unsafe abortion or become infected with HIV�. Documentary A documentary depicting the real life stories of girls between the ages of 16 and 18 in the Central Region who had to deal with the consequences of teenage pregnancy was shown as part of the launch to educate members of the Kayayei Association on the risk of early child-bearing.