Many teenagers getting pregnant in Akwa Ibom

By Etim Ekpimah

A group, The Excellence Community Education Welfare Scheme, has expressed worry over the rising incidence of teenage pregnancy in Akwa Ibom, describing it as disturbing.

The Chief Executive Officer of the group, Mr. Andy Eyo, said recent Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey had put the rate of child pregnancy in the state at 17 per cent.

Eyo told Southern City News it was unimaginable that there were still young ladies in the state having sex without condoms.

He described the figure as quite high, noting that the development indicated that schoolchildren in the state indulged in sex as a form of recreation.

Eyo said, “We all know that the non-use of condom is the reason, even across villages, where young children in schools regard sex as a form of recreation, and this unfortunately results in high teenage pregnancies in the state.”

He added, “The issue of intergenerational sex, where the older men continue to court younger children who do not have any access to information and how to negotiate for safe sex, is deplorable,” he said.

Eyo, who on Saturday during a three-day training programme for public and private health workers in Akwa Ibom State on how to integrate family planning with HIV programme through the use of condoms, said the training would help health workers to control the rate of teenage pregnancy, HIV infection and unwanted pregnancies.

The programme tagged ‘Awareness and Condom Programming Training’, was sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund.

Eyo expressed confidence that a situation where family planning was integrated with HIV/AIDS-related services would help create increased awareness on the use of condoms.

“If people should go to health centres where family service is provided, they should be able to provide condoms in the context of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases beyond just the context of family planning,” he said.

He also stated that health centres should provide relevant messages to young people and commercial sex workers on the use of condom.

“Every young person should be able to know by the tip of their fingers how to negotiate for safer sex. Young ladies, who are most vulnerable, should be able to have access to information through this exercise.

Such young ladies should be able to negotiate for safer sex and not be indulging in casual sex without the use of condoms,” he said.

Culled from The Punch newspaper