Gender Department Sensitizes Adolescent Learners On Reproductive Health and Gender Based Violence

The Department of Gender in collaboration with the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council and the Ada West District Assembly (AWDA) on Wednesday, 17th June 2026, held learners Engagement session in the Anyamam community in the Ada West District, aimed at sensitizing adolescent learners especially the girl child on sexual reproductive health rights, and sexual and gender based violence.

The one day workshop which came on the back of Parents Engagement session on misinformation and disinformation surrounding Human Rights Education and Gender based violence affecting adolescents and young people in relation to Reproductive Health Education, held a week earlier, was sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) through the collaboration with the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council and was to create a participatory platform for adolescent learners to dialogue on issues concerning reproductive health and gender based violence, and for their empowerment.

The Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Madam Matilda Banfro, in her opening remarks stated thus; “adolescence is a period of life with specific health and development needs and rights. It is a time to develop knowledge and skills, learn to manage emotions and relationships and acquire attributes and abilities that will be important for enjoying the adolescence years and assuming adult roles”.

Madam Matilda therefore said, that during the period of adolescence young people encounter certain challenges and disadvantages which they are determined to surmount but “need support because they still face systematic barriers and oppressive practices that negatively impact their personal growth and development including poverty, teenage pregnancy and child marriage” and hence the need for the workshop to “reorient and educate adolescence girls and young people on their Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) to address the high incidence of teenage pregnancy and SGBV in the Anyamam community”.

Madam Rebecca Efua Anamam who represented the Ada West District Health Directorate and delivered a presentation on reproductive health, began her presentation by asking the learners about their understanding of reproductive health, puberty among others and the learners responded eloquently to the admiration of facilitators. Madam Rebecca therefore took the adolescent learners through puberty life, healthy relationship, consent and sexual rights, teenage pregnancy, sexuality and transmitted diseases, Peer influence and where to get help when one is going through challenges as an adolescent. To empower the young adolescent, Madam Rebecca Efua Anamam took time to dwell on the characteristics of healthy relationship as she underscored that a healthy relationship must be built on mutual trust and maintenance of personal identity, equality of trust rather than power and control, and open communication without fear of judgment or manipulation among others. Madam Rebecca also dwelt on peer influence as one of the challenges of adolescence as well as certain biological changes associated with adolescence which she indicated as normal and natural. She therefore urged learners not only to watch out for the prevalence of peer pressure but to also make conscious efforts to deal with it by first identifying the pressure and take steps not only to say no to the pressure but to create escape plan to flee the situation, to redirect the situation and to seek help from trusted adults.

In urging the adolescent girl learners to take good care of themselves by abstaining from early sex so they could become somebody important in the future, Madam Rebecca shared the Ada West District data on teenage pregnancy with the learners which showed that in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, the districted recorded teenage pregnancy between the age 10-14years as 14, 8, 4 and 11 respectively whereas within the same period the pregnancy rate of age group between 15-19 years stood at 280, 271, 274 and 309 respectively.

Mr. Philip Dotse, the Head of Social Welfare and Community Development made presentation on Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), and Technology facilitated Gender based violence. Mr. Dotse who also began his presentation by seeking the adolescent learners’ understanding on the difference between “sex and gender” and with a positive response from the adolescent learners, took his time to distinguish between “sex and gender” and enriched his presentation with pictorial demonstration of circumstances that could trigger gender based violence and could as well be facilitated through modern day technology. He therefore underscored that SGBV is said to have occasioned if a harmful act is done by one person to another based on their gender identity or sex. And, distinguishing sex from gender, Mr. Dotse made the point, that whereas sex is a biological construct, gender on the other hand is a social construct, construed as how one either sees himself or herself as well as how society defines the individual based on identity, roles and culture and therefore differ from society to society.

It was expected that adolescent learners especially the girl child after going through the one day workshop which was participatory in character, they would be empowered to take the right decision about their sexual reproductive health life and where to seek help from, if the need arises.

The workshop which saw about hundred and seventy (170) adolescent learners participating was also witnessed by the Assembly member for the area, Hon. Philip Tettey Sai and some teachers.