Early pregnancy, early motherhood and educational attainment for young girls in Techiman, Ghana
- Literature review
3.1. Understanding the role of women and girl child in Ghana
Women are recognized as central to the well-being of every society globally, and any measure of deprivation against them attracts damaging effects on the same communities. However, in countries, especially African states with Ghana included, where tradition and religious beliefs are deeply rooted, and the roles of each gender are outlined with diversified practices. Ghana remains a multicultural nation with its population practicing traditional faiths, Christianity, and Islam. In this regard, the mix has spanned a variety of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups that each defines distinct roles for their women and girl child in the country. The bulk of opportunity inequalities are still higher in females than males with a significant impact on rural communities since a high proportion of the population in Ghana is still rural. The considerable gap is induced by the lack of addressing the vicious circle of tradition and long-standing discrimination against women in health, education, employment, and access to information. These aspects have sincerely relegated women and girl children under positions of discrimination, deprivation, subordination, harassment, stigmatization, and other related traumatic experiences. These thwart any potential for the female gender to raise and be counted in defining their roles.
Rubio (N.D), in his article Factors that impact girls’education in Ghana, highlights that African identities are generally related to the extended family that can include members from three or four generations. He asserts that these families influence every aspect of its members, thus determining the overall organization of the society. According to the article, families are dynamic institutions integrated by multiple members, whereby religion, cooperation, lineages decent, and customs play a crucial role. Rubio argues that Ghana has two distinct family organizations, which include matrilineal and patrilineal, with the latter constituting the majority of Ghana’s population as a party to their family structure. In this article, all children belong to the father, but males inherit the family properties while women receive items related to domestic activities. This narrative indicates that Ghanaian women and girl child roles are to take care of family chores with no or limited obligation to demand any property belonging to their respective families.
In addition, Rubio (N.D) argues that Ghana culture has many rites that mark significant events in peoples’ lives. In this regard, the ritual of initiation, as it is equally essential for both genders, has more considerable significance for girls that amounts to unique and diversified ceremonies after their first menstruation. The girls are exposed to teachings in those ceremonies implying information concerning sex and beliefs, to mention but a few. Rubio argues that these teachings aim to develop skills that allow them to find good husbands in the future since marriage in Ghanaian culture is mandatory. This literature supports the arguments of why arranged marriages are party to their tradition. The article further records that pregnant women in this country are accorded special privileges since they are considered fragile and beautiful. In a nutshell, the Ghanaian women and girl-child roles are to take care of their families to develop skills and knowledge to tend to theirs once married. Young girls have to perform domestic chores to the extent of being forced to drop out of opportunities such as schooling to tend to these many domestic activities such as cooking, washing dishes, and tending to their brothers in a bid to know how to manage a house (24).
3.2. Ghana Culture and Girl child education
The Ghanaian culture has no legal barriers that impede girls from attending school. However, traditional practices and beliefs accord the girl child limited or no enough time to dedicate themselves to study or attending to their homework. These beliefs highlight that a girl child should attend to all domestic chores to learn how to manage them once married since that is compulsory. Many traditionalists reject sending their daughters to school because they believe an educated woman will eventually have difficulties in choosing a man to marry her, and she might remain unmarried forever. Nevertheless, the practice is changing in present Ghana attributed to the shift from extended to nuclear structures of family whereby prestige, wealth, and lineage are more related to having money. Women have significant access to education and tend not to marry very young to pursue their desires and passion.
According to Atuase (2019) in the article Gender equality and women empowerment in Ghana, the role of academic libraries argues that civilization and modernization have gained increased embrace as bases that address existing vicious circles of traditions and long-standing discrimination against women in many spheres. He highlights that African countries have demonstrated continued commitment to accelerate and broaden efforts to promote gender equality at all levels. Atuase expressly acknowledges the progressive efforts by Ghana to initiate policies, strategies, programs, and directives to realize the vision of empowering women through girl child education. The article sites the Affirmative Action law that champions the need to balance the number of women at the forefront of policies and political activities. The author highlights the government policy on free senior high education, which was fathered by the Affirmative Action as a strategy that has witnessed a tremendous increase in education enrolments to top high learning institutions after its commission in 2017.
Notwithstanding, Atuase laments that Ghana is still to tackle incidences of sexual harassment, child marriages, and other many related issues on women. This shows that despite the government’s renewed and aggravated efforts to empower women through girl child education, there is still a need for collective concerns to amicably resolving on women to realize their objectives. The article records that information, knowledge gap is the bother to attain gender equity, and education is centrally placed in both spheres. Atuase argues that it becomes more challenging for women as they hinder them from overcoming any barriers to solving the problems that confront them if they lack education. The author’s findings register that in Ghana, many schemes are vigorously bridging the gaps of education inequality such as libraries and internet classes that deliver services and skills to constraint girls, especially in rural areas where culture is deeply rooted and adhered to massively.
According to Essel and Opoku-Mensah (2017) article, Dress fashion in feminist and child rights campaigns in Ghanaian public sculptures of the 1990s, women are discriminated in many African countries just because of their sex. The authors credit Ghanaian feminists as the most successful in advocating their roles in pursuit of societal changes. The article highlights that Ghanaian women have significantly contributed to significant historical events in the country related to shaping their culture to foster girl child education. The authors site the dress fashion in outdoor sculptures of the 1990s in the Accra Cityscape as a prominent scenario by Nana Konadu Agyemang of 31st December Women’s Movement that accentuated feminist activism. The event fostered the sensitization of child rights campaigns by encouraging girl-child education and offering support for government efforts to actualize women empowerment in Ghana. The article relates women’s performance of household chores and parenting being shared in many African countries as the culture worth addressing to achieve girl-child education to the maximum. The principle obstacle of attaining girl-child education is the traditional belief that female learning ends in the kitchen.
Nevertheless, Essel and Opoku-Mensah highlight that the culture has continuously been addressed by successive Ghanaian governments through attempts to increase women’s representation and participation in leadership, citing the formation of the Ghana Federation of Women (GFW) by President Kwame Nkrumah in 1953. GFW has participated in fostering many girl-child education policies through campaigns in the process, gaining massive mergers with other women leagues to rise to a national body of the National Council of Ghana Women. Therefore, in recent years, the Ghanaian culture has gained a new shape that accommodates girl-child education.
3.3. The Ghana perception on early pregnancy
Approximately sixteen million girls aged between 15 to 19 years and 2.5 million below 16 years give birth each year globally, according to Gbogbo (2020) research. The article reiterates that the proportion of teenage girls becoming mothers or pregnant is staggering across sub-Saharan African countries presently, with 90% of adolescent pregnancies occurring in most low and middle-income countries. In Ghana, there is a vast literature that identifies the determinants of early sexual activities, contraception, unsafe abortions, and teenage motherhood. Gbogbo argues that in a study conducted in Ghana in 2017, 14% of the young generation of between 15 to 19 years had experienced pregnancy. The research by Gbogbo highlights the perception across the Ghanaian population as varied, given the reasons attributed to early pregnancies. These reasons include transactional sex in pursuit to meet basic needs, sexual violence and exploitation, and personal reasons such as commanding respect from the society. The article indicated that the vast Ghanaian population perceives early pregnancy as shameful to community that sets a bad example to the rest of young generation. Logically, no matter what the reasons, guardians and parents of the pregnant adolescents become upset, angry, and show disappointment in the initial stages but they eventually gain acceptance. The research by Gbogbo showed that most focus in Ghana is directed to supporting individuals struggling with events such as loss of relatives and employment thus undermining the struggles of early pregnancies. This highlights massive reluctance to address ignorance on sexual matters coupled with risks and challenges associated with pregnancy and parenting by adolescents. Therefore, Gbogbo’s research findings concluded that early pregnancy is a difficult experience for Ghanaian youths with perceptions of disappointment, shame, and stigma.
According to Britwum et al. (2017), there is a variation in circumstances of girls that find themselves pregnant before the considered socially accepted age. Given these variations, age-based definitions to derive the appropriate boundary to legal adulthood vary across African countries. The article cites the Ghana’s Children Act of 1998 that categorizes children as anyone below the age of eighteen. This narrative increases the perceptions surrounding what is legally accepted adulthood. Britwum et al. highlight that many studies in Ghana have indicated that majority of teenage pregnancy cases occur between the ages of sixteen to nineteen years of age with Ghana Health Service indicating a rise to alarming numbers of such pregnancies in recent reports. The article points out that lower level of educational achievements are strongly related to higher teen parenthood and poorer long-term life outcomes. Nevertheless, the residents’ perception in Ghana is that more efforts need to focus on the abilities to deliver empowering outcomes for females since the girls do not ignite most early pregnancies but rather fall as victims. The authors point a blaming figure to the government for not implementing policies that protect the female gender dignity and safeguard their overall well-being. This is a clear indication that the Ghana perception on early pregnancies is multifaceted.
3.4. School mothering, re-entry and related matters
Many arguments reveal that the persons responsible for pupil’s pregnancies are their peers and relatives that predominantly come from communities where the girls live. In this regard, school mothering and re-entry becomes a community concern since many related matters such as secrecy and family values introduce underlying obstacles. Baa-Poku (2016) in his article argues that education completion by girls remains a challenge particularly in basic school level in Ghana despite the country’s constitution and the Children’s Act affirming the right to equal access to educational opportunities for all Ghanaian children. The article points out, from interaction with school heads and teachers, the phenomenon to negative impact of school pupil pregnancies and minimal commitment for both victims and parents to re-entry. Baa-Poku argues that schoolgirl dropouts due to pregnancy become vulnerable and exposed to child labor, early marriages, transactional sex, and continued cycle of pregnancies. His article highlights the government directives that facilitate re-entry of pregnant girls and school mothers as inclusive education policy and re-entry directive in Ghana. These directives provide a procedure that ensures the girls feel accepted and free from stigmatization yet very few girls participate in the process for eventual return to school after pregnancy. Baa-Poku emphasizes on the girl’s inability to manage the logistics associated with mothering and schooling as related matters contributing to minimal return to school.
3.5. Social, economic and cultural terrain for re-entry
The decision for school mothers to return to school to pursue corresponding academic work to completion is facilitated by important social, institutional, economic, and cultural factors (Britwum et al. 2017). In their article, Britwum et al. state that the factors shaping the constructs of motherhood, female sexuality, and associated stigmatization coupled with possible exclusion of pregnant pupils and school mothers by their community play a vital role in re-entry of victims to learning institutions. The authors argue that the resolution of a girl to return to school and family acceptance to support them is a tiny drop in the ocean in addressing this issue. The article notes that socio-cultural factors influencing re-entry of school mothers are rooted in gendered customary practices. In addition, the authors cite widespread poverty, stigmatization, and exclusion as related matters to re-entry.
Similarly, Ahorlu, Pfeiffer, and Obrist (2015) in their article argue that pregnant adolescent girls are viewed as weak and vulnerable in the society. In this regard, much support has focused on the girls’ vulnerability and associated risks, which the authors feel it, should shift to focusing on developing competencies of accessing economic, social, and cultural capitals by the girls to effectively tackle the threat of teenage pregnancies. The authors’ state that adolescent pregnancies in Ghana contribute about 9% to maternal mortality that hinders their terrain to school re-entry. Logically, a young girl can hardly cope with early pregnancy the culminates to a dead child. Many families and communities in Ghana attribute that to bad omen rendering re-entry impossible for these girls. The article highlights that young women are likely to experience complications during pregnancies within which without proper support exposes them to massive social, medical, and economic risks. These girls encounter social exclusion that results to poverty. The study findings revealed that parents are the single most prominent social actors consulted by adolescents for sexuality related information in Ghana, which should not be case since social, cultural, and economic factors are correlated in early pregnancies ant the terrain for re-entry.
3.6. Institutionally located barrier
Britwum et al. (2017) in their research highlighted that school environment shape female response in respect to motivating them to remain in school. The article outlines the significance of the school environment not only as a facilitator of re-entry but also as a major player in schoolgirl’s pregnancy prevention. However, a vast measure of gender equality provisions that addresses cultural norms and values that shape attitudes to female sexuality is lacking in many institutions introducing a huge barrier. The authors argue that most institutions comply with the cultural norms that dispose girls to risk of early sex without putting into consideration the consequences of unplanned pregnancies. In this regard, the vast majority of institutional barriers in correspondence to Britwum et al. remain stigmatization, exclusion, and discrimination by both students and teachers who feel ashamed to relating with the victims. The article indicates that Ghana has no existing institutional re-entry policies although it derives directives from the national constitution that mandates the nation to ensure every school-going-age child complete basic education as the minimum.
3.7. Existing gap
Many existing researches and literature focus on the overall factors contributing to school pupil pregnancies, risks involved, and policies related to re-entry after childbirth. In this regard, it has been challenging to address the increased measures of early pregnancies due to diversity of cultures and generalization of the same since studies focus on Ghana as a whole. Notably, cultural factors play a principle role in the entire phenomenon, which have failed addressing due to generalization and varied beliefs. Therefore, present researches are required to address the issue in region basis in a bid to take the interventions to the root courses. It is in this note that this research on early pregnancy, early motherhood and educational attainment for young girls in Techiman, Ghana is justified and requires hastened attention.
3.8. Future research
Researchers have found out that parents are the single most prominent social actors, which adolescent girls hugely consult for sexuality related information. There has been continued emphasizes on the critical role of parents in providing sexual education to their daughters. However, the current society has experienced changing relationships between parents and their children. Despite the increased literacy rates in current communities in developing countries, parent’s provision for sexuality education and other reproductive support is attracting heightened concern. The young generation sees parent-child communication on sexual matters as authoritative and vague while parents seem overwhelmed with these massive roles. In this regard, future researches need to review the critical role parents play in sexual oriented information in a bid to upgrade it with emerging severed kinship ties. This area is significant since the parent role cannot be substituted but only upgraded. This can only be done through evidence-based approaches geared at equipping present parents with necessary information to mold their children, especially girls to responsible individuals.
References
Ahorlu, C. K., Pfeiffer, C., & Obrist, B. (2015). Socio-cultural and economic factors influencing adolescents’ resilience against the threat of teenage pregnancy: a cross-sectional survey in Accra, Ghana. Reproductive health. 12(1), 117.
Atuase, D. (2018). Gender equality and women empowerment in Ghana, the role of academic libraries. Journal of Applied Information Science. 6(2), 14-20.
Baa-Poku, J. (2016). Girls’ re-entry into school after pregnancy in the Ashiedu Keteke Sub-Metro District, Accra (Doctoral dissertation, University of Ghana).
Britwum, A. O., Akorsu, A. D., Agbesinyale, P. K., & Aikins, K. S. (2017). A case study on girls who have dropped out of school due to pregnancy and factors facilitating and/or preventing their re-entry into school after delivery.
Essel, O. Q., & Opoku-Mensah, I. (2017). Dress fashion in feminist and child rights campaigns in Ghanaian public sculptures of the 1990s. International Journal of Education & the Arts. 18(32).
Gbogbo, S. (2020). Early motherhood: voices from female adolescents in the Hohoe Municipality, Ghana—a qualitative study utilizing Schlossberg’s Transition Theory. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being. 15(1), 1716620.
Rubio, A. (N.D). Factors that impact girls’education in Ghana.