The Sad Story of The Ghanaian Adolescent.

…and we have to do something about it!

Adolescence is the period of transition from childhood to adulthood. In other words, it is the period of metamorphosis of a child to an adult. You remember yours, right? You remember that time when you were confused about your bodily changes, your new and weird feelings, your place in society, your position among friends, who you are and so many other stuff.

It’s a period of many questions, that are begging to be answered.

Ghana is a religious country with religious hypocrisy. This is a place where one’s piety is measured by religious indicators such as practicing religious acts, attending religious meetings, speaking and living lies upon lies. Many people are faking. From leaders to members, you wouldn’t believe what goes on behind closed doors and under the sheets. The truthful and real people are rather few.

Let’s start with the family.

Many families have failed their adolescents. They have failed them in providing adequate and right knowledge about adolescence and sex. Sex education is practically non-existent in most families. Yet, when young people make mistakes out of ignorance, they are blamed, and they bear all the consequences. After all, we still live in an era where parents are always right, and the children are always wrong.

These poor adolescents get exposed to wrong information from their friends and unkind adults who desire to take advantage of their ignorance, which usually happens with the girl-child.

Poverty, another canker in our part of the world, is used as a cheap excuse for parents to practically sell out their daughters to men which forms a relationship of transactional sex between the girl and the man. It’s like the acceptable form of prostitution: the man gives his money; the girl gives her body. Mind you, some religious leaders and people of high social standing are involved in this nasty business!

Before I continue, let me quickly explain with a question why it’s a cheap excuse. In a poor family, is the boy-child also subjected to a life of prostitution? Think about it.

Thanks to the zero-education given by the family, some adolescents allow their curiosity to get the best out of them and so they become sexually active. At this point, abstinence is total nonsense to such persons. Yet, parents and the society in general frowns on providing information about condoms and other forms of contraceptives to ensure that at least adolescents are practicing safe sex. I must admit, I used to think like this too until the community medicine module I’m currently taking in medical school started…it has exposed me to the real issues surrounding teenage pregnancy that everyone doesn’t want to talk about. Yet funny enough, people don’t understand why it’s still on the rise in Ghana.

As for abortion, it is an abomination in the Ghanaian culture, which makes it difficult to encourage young people to practice safe abortion. In fact, it is hard to be given the platform to educate people about comprehensive abortion care, therefore, young people resort to all sorts of dangerous concoctions and practices that end up as emergency cases of incomplete abortion.

After all this, it is interesting to note that Ghana has a comprehensive Adolescent Reproductive Health Policy, which spells out all the roles of the various stakeholders in this issue: the family and community, religious bodies, Ghana Education Service, Ministry of Youth and Sports, and so on. Obviously, these policies are not implemented, since adolescents are still not prioritized as much as they should be.

Adolescents are the future this land, whether we like it or not. We will definitely suffer the consequences of not doing what we need to do for them right now.

Signed, Richeal.