Okada Riders Impregnating Teenage Girls at Mangoase- Assembly Man Cry for Help.

The high rate of teenage pregnancy going on at Mangoase, a farming community in the Akuapem North Municipality of the Eastern region has brought to bear the move of the Assembly Member to hit on an alarming rate due to poverty.

The Assembly Man for the area Honourable Justice Siaw Mandela in an interview said at least 70% of pregnant women who visited Mangoase Health Center in 2020 and 2021 were teenagers between the ages of 13 to 16 years.

Interventions such as public education by health officials have helped reduce the menace to about 50% of antenatal attendants in 2022.

The operators of Okada riders have been accused of being mostly responsible for the teenage pregnancy cases in the area as they entice the young girls with little monies from their operations either to give Gh¢6.00 bowls of indomie and free transportation to their destinations has been the enticement to their play.

Honourable Justice Siaw Mandela, said poverty and lack of parental guidance are the main causes of the high rate of teenage pregnancy in the area.

Assembly Man said a recorded trend by the health officials has it that, for the year 2020, about 70% of pregnancies recorded in that year were teenagers. It ranges from 13 to 16 years as it dropped in 2022 which was about 50% to 60%.

He reiterated that continuous health education was poor, poverty and lack of parental guidance have been the cause of most of the teenage pregnancies in the area and has decided to embark on Ghana Health Services education, organized a community durbar to educate the public as a menace to enable them to reduce the high number of teenage pregnancy this year.

According to the Assembly Man, teenage girls in particular who are students will also be educated to know much about the effects of teenage pregnancy which all the students from Mangoase Senior High School and those in the town especially the Junior High School pupils will also be called to patronised in the education campaign.

Assembly Member calls on the government to help provide credit facilities to the farmers in the area to revive agriculture to enable them to e good care of their children to help reduce teenage pregnancy which has become endemic in the community.

He also appealed to the government to construct their deplorable roads for them and also to provide jobs and agribusiness opportunities to the youth. 

He said, Mangoase, was once a vibrant agriculture community and undoubtedly a food basket of the Ghanaian economy. It also housed some critical state agricultural storage facilities which according to the History attracted top state officials including late Ghana’s First President Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah to visit the community.

He, therefore, appeals to the government and stakeholders to help construct a fence wall around Mangoase Senior High School to prevent students from indulging in teenage pregnancy.

According to him, the lack of a fence wall around Mangoase Senior High School leads to an increase in female students' teenage pregnancy. 

He added that the school was built in 1992 and has never seen a fence wall around but now calling for the construction of a fence to secure female students from getting impregnated in the school. 

Story by Opamago Paparichy.