8 Recommendations 

Pregnancy and Sexual Violence Prevention  

Since girls who become pregnant often begin having sexual relationships after they leave school, 

pregnancy prevention efforts should focus on both male and female out of school as well as in 

school adolescents and youth. The following strategies might be used to reach these groups. 

Build on existing puberty practices of parents and other caretakers. Parents and other 

caretakers might be educated to include information on the biological fertile period, modern 

methods of contraception, and the dynamics of date rape, to their existing practices of 

puberty instruction. An example of a message aimed at boys through their parents and 

caretakers is,  When a girl says no to sex it means no.  For girls,  It is important to say no 

both verbally and non verbally through body language. 

10

Many girls who have recently migrated to Accra from other areas of Ghana might be reached 

with pregnancy prevention and sexual violence education through the  madam  for whom 

they sell food items and with whom they live. Others might be contacted through local  susu 

collectors  or mobile bankers, since many save their money this way. 

Train teachers about the biological fertile period during pre service training and in service 

training on holidays and encourage routine teaching of pregnancy prevention, including 

modern contraception in the classroom. Encourage teacher parent dialogue about the 

curriculum related to reproductive health in the schools at PTA meetings in the schools, so 

parents are aware and can reinforce learning.   

Encourage family planning, postnatal care, and abortion providers to promote biological 

understandings of the fertile period and modern methods of birth control. Postnatal care and 

abortion clinic visits are opportunities to reach adolescents and youth with information about 

modern contraception. 

Abortion Education 

Conduct dissemination meetings for health care providers, e.g., hospital, family planning, 

maternal health, abortion, and postabortion providers, regarding the findings of this study of 

adolescent pregnancy and abortion to generate further strategies to reduce the incidence of 

unwanted pregnancy and abortion among adolescents and youth in their communities.  

Since some pregnant girls are more vulnerable than others those without supportive boyfriends 

or those involved in a family conflict over whether or not to have an abortion social service and 

abortion service providers should be informed of these differences and instructed how to assess 

girls' vulnerability and provide support accordingly.   

10

 See Tagoe Darko (1997) for further discussion of this approach. 

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