A group of adolescent girls in the Ho Municipal area has pledged to abstain from premarital sex to avoid writing the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) with pregnancies.
The more than 600 basic school pupils made the promise at a two-day capacity building engagement on Adolescent Reproductive Health, Gender-based Violence, Domestic Violence and harmful traditional practices, in Ho.
The event, held under the auspices of the Department of Gender, was funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Every year, a number of girls in the area either drop out of school due to teenage pregnancies or write their BECEs carrying pregnancies.
A few also take their babies to the examination halls and breastfeed them intermittently with writing the examinations.
Ms Comfort Ablometi, the Volta Regional Director of the Department of Gender, said the Region was leading in teenage pregnancies and urged the girls to keep their promise and become role models.
Madam Vivian Tettevi, the Ho Municipal Public Nursing Officer, said teenage pregnancies exerted social, economic and academic pressures on pupils and students and advised them to abstain from sex.
She said negative traditional practices such as widowhood rites made women psychologically unstable, and so they must cease.
Mr Daniel Carlos Mensah, the Principal Investigator, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Volta Region, advised the girls to report those who attempt to force them to enter into early marriages to their teachers, the Police and assembly members.
He also tasked them to report the culprits of defilement, sexual abuse and violence against them to appropriate authorities.
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