A 17-year-old Yvonne Harrison has been denied her right to education for being pregnant.

Yvonne, who is a first-year Junior High School (JHS) pupil and has a year-old son, dropped out of school last year after she got pregnant because her mother has resolved not to allow her to continue her schooling.

Yvonne’s mother, Augustina Mensah, explained that she took that decision because the man who impregnated her daughter has refused to accept responsibility.

She explained further that, it is impossible for her to shoulder the financial responsibility of taking care of both Yvonne and her grandson.

Instead, she plans to sponsor her daughter to learn a trade. This will effectively end Yvonne’s dream of becoming a nurse, Joy News reporter, Henry Kwasi Badu has reported.

Yvonne is part of the increasing number of dropouts in the Ahanta West Municipality of the Western Region, where, of every five pregnancies one is a teenager.

For these alarming figures, many young girls there could be deprived of realising their full potentials at school.

Expressing concern over the development, Health Director of the Ahanta West Municipality, Catherine Effah Otto, says the municipality has been ranked number one for the past five years on teenage pregnancy in the Western Region.

She attributes the high prevalence to poor parental guidance.

Greater Accra recorded a total 10,000 teenage pregnancy cases in 2015.

"The sad thing is that we have children as young as 10 to 14 years also becoming pregnant and though we see a reduction it is still not acceptable," Regional Director of Health, Dr. Linda Van Otoo stated at that year’s health review.

 

 

 

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