By Philip Tengzu
Wa, (UW/R), Aug. 07, GNA – Madam Charity Batuure, the Upper West Regional Director, Department of Gender (DoG), has urged young people, particularly girls, to take responsibility of protecting their bodies from abuse by unsuspecting people.
“Young people are responsible for what happens to them. Make sure you protect your body; it is your right and your responsibility.
You have the responsibility to ensure that nobody uses your body as a refuse dump,” she said.
Madam Batuure said this in Wa, during an inter-generational forum organised by the Children and Youth in Broadcasting (CYIB) Curious Minds with funding from the UNICEF.
She encouraged young people to report issues of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence to the appropriate authorities including the DoG and the police for investigation and action against perpetrators of such acts.
“If somebody is abusing you sexually or touching you in a way you don’t like, report to the authorities or the Department of Gender,” she advised.
Madam Batuure observed that institutions such as the schools that were supposed to protect girls from abuse were the ones rather abusing them with impunity.
She indicated that her department was currently processing a case for court involving a teacher who sexually abused students and impregnated two girls.
She expressed worry about teachers who sexually abuse school children were sometimes transferred as their punishment rather than severely punishing them to serve as a deterrent to others.
She said: “What they have done is to say you don’t do it here, go and do it elsewhere.”
She stated that interference in the investigation and prosecution of cases of sexual abuse based on “he is one of us,” was affecting the fight against the menace.
Pognaa Rosemary Bangzie, the Upper West Regional Focal Person for Adolescent Reproductive Health at the Ghana Health Service, said the region recorded 8.5 per cent prevalent rate of adolescent pregnancy in the first half of 2023.
That she said, ranked the region as the second lowest in the country after the Greater Accra Region with a 5.5 per cent prevalence rate.
Pognaa Bangzie, who is also the Queen Mother of Duong, a community in the Nadowli-Kaleo District, indicated that the region was trekking on the right path to reducing adolescent pregnancies.
She explained that they were currently implementing programmes against adolescent pregnancies including the formation of 75 adolescent health clubs in schools and communities.
Mr Menance Dennis Bayou, a Deputy Director at the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council, encouraged the students to take advantage of the government’s interventions in the education sector to improve their well-being.
He said they should desist from engaging in negative practices and focus on their education so that the government’s resources and investment in the education sector would not be in vain.
Mr Andrew Boateng, the Monitoring and Evaluating Officer of the Community Development Alliance (CDA), said his organisation was also working to contribute to ending harmful practices against children and young people.
He said as part of their efforts, they had trained about 100 anti-child bride and community change agents to report cases of child marriages and abuses to the organisation and appropriate agencies for intervention.
The forum, on the theme: “Building a better Ghana: Eliminating Harmful Practices for Sustainable Development”, brought together representatives from the Civil Society Organisations and governmental departments and agencies, traditional leaders, youth groups and students, among others.
It was aimed to create an inter-generational platform on ending harmful practices including child marriage and teenage pregnancy that hampered the holistic development of children and young people.
GNA