Ghana: When beaches breed babies

The seaside along the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolis has become a breeding ground for babies and not fingerlings anymore.

Young, energetic and beautiful girls of school-going age have shunned a better dream of getting themselves educated and thus earning a better living for prostitution and teenage pregnancy.

This worrying social canker has pertained over the years and is begging the attention of parents and stakeholders as such to at least bring new hope to these children.

Seashores and ghettoes where these young girls ply their age-old trade include Sekondi, Ekuase, New Takoradi and Nkontompo, among other places.

Ms. Florence Parry, member of the Social Services Committee of the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly indicated that, “Surprisingly, these young ones ply such a trade for between GHc2 and GHc5 per customer.

The GH¢2 and GH¢5 paid as a fee for a round of unprotected sex, exposes these children to lots of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and  HIV/AIDS itself.

Such diseases place a huge yoke on the future of these children and the human resource base of the Region and the country as a whole.
Mr. Emmanuel Edwin Adoko, an Assembly man at New Takoradi Lower Electoral area told the Ghana News Agency how severely the practice was destroying the future of girls in the community.

He intimated that Sunday nights were worst in that community and as such schools in the community were virtually empty, particularly of the girl child the following day.

The Assemblyman talked about some group of buildings where rooms were designated for such amorous and social vice.

Madam Hannah Mills, a resident at Sekondi also confirmed and described as disturbing, the situation where children born out of these “games and trade” were left to the mercies of the weather and sometimes abandoned in rooms particularly in the evening in order for the mothers to continue with their trade.

The question that readily comes to mind is: “Are parents or society shirking the tool of control and discipline and leaving the future of the country to chance?”

Aren’t there any social intervention packages by the various ministries concerned to capture these children and give them better lives?

Mr. Samuel Adjaquah, a governance expert called for a moral revolution in the country. He said the society was gradually losing out on its productive workforce and called for urgent measures to check the situation.

Ghanaian society is indeed in trouble should these vices go on at the blind side of authorities; and even parents who are key actors in the lives of these future generations look on helplessly.

Ms Josephine Yankson Amo of the Department of Women who corroborated the happenings, mentioned Sekondi Post Office and Zenith areas as sleeping places for “outside Girls” who come to town to engage in the trade.

She indicated that her outfit had received various complaints from the public and entreated parents to be more responsible adding, “Some parents even push their children into the trade”.

Ms.  Amo has, therefore, called on the media and the police to support in educating as well as clamping down on such nefarious activities.

By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Source: GNA