The Agona West Municipal Assembly has taken a number of measures to curb the increasing number of teenage pregnancy cases among school girls in the area.
Mrs Justina Marigold Assan, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), assured stakeholders in education that the situation will change due to the checks put in place.
She said it was sad to note that some of the girls were getting pregnant at the early ages of 10 to 15 years and this had become a source of worry to the Assembly.
Mrs Assan made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a durbar at Nkum in the Agona West Municipality.
She said the Assembly had put in measures including cultural and traditional customary activities and quiz and essay competitions on teenage pregnancy to arouse the girls’ awareness about the dangers it posed to their efforts to climb higher the educational ladder.
Mrs Assan said figures recorded in 2016 and 2017 on teenage pregnancy in the area were outrageous and promised that everything possible would be done to reduce the menace.
She said the Assembly would sponsor four female students every year to pursue a midwifery course and other fields of interest to encourage more girls to further their education.
Mrs Assan said in order to increase more women to participate in the District Assembly concept to improve the Local Governance System, the Assembly had decided to sponsor women to contest the next district level elections.
“Out of the 31 elected assembly members, only five are women, hence the need to support them,” she said.
The MCE appealed to Parliament to speed up the passage of the Affirmative Action Bill to provide more opportunity for women to take up certain positions in the various sectors of the economy.
On domestic violence, Mrs Assan asked men who beat their wives on the least provocation to stop because it was against the rights of the women.
Mrs Thywill Eyra Kpe, the Central Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, congratulated the six women who won the parliamentary seats in the Region in 2016.
She said women participation in local governance was too low with the number of elected assembly women reducing from 39 in 2010 to 29 out of the more than 570 assembly members in the last four years.
Mrs Kpe said the Region currently had only two female district chief executives for Agona West and Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese and called for more female participation.
She expressed concern that the continuing discrimination and violence against women and girls were carried out under the guise of culture and tradition.
Mrs Kpe called for an end to practices that continued to suppress women and prevent them from achieving their full potentials to enhance development in society.
Okofo Katatkyi Nyakoh Eku X, Omanhene of Nyakrom Traditional Area, who chaired the function, said women were uniquely made by God and had been assigned special roles to make life worthwhile.
Other speakers were Ms Elisabeth Essel, the Agona West Municipal Director of Education and Madam Efuah Frempomaah, 2004 National Best Farmer.
GNA
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2017/12/10/development/pass-gender-bill-now-ngo-tells-nigerias-national-assembly/
