Put a padlock on your virginity till you're 18 – Gender Minister to girls

Addressing the media at the press series at the Ministry of Information, the Minister advised young girls to keep their virginity secured till they are of age.

“Girlchild, don’t sleep with him. It is not love. It is lust. You are special, you are precious. Until 18, put a padlock on it and lock it and throw the key away,” she posited.

She added that when boys try to lure them into their snares under the pretence of love, they should turn them down by playing smart.

“Don’t get pregnant. If a boy loves you, he will say ‘because I love you, sleep with me. You should say to him ‘because you love me, don’t sleep with me. If you love me, demonstrate your love by not sleeping with me”, Otiko Djaba cautioned.

Mr Moses Dramani Luri, the Executive Director of Social Initiative for Literacy and Development Programme recently called on Parliament to pass a law with harsher penalty on persons responsible for teenage pregnancies to sufficiently guarantee the protection and future of young girls in the country to enable them realize their dreams.

In 2017, 986 adolescent girls in the Greater Accra Region engaged in illegal termination of their pregnancies. The figure comprised of 31 girls aged between 10 and 14, and 955 adolescent girls aged between 15 and 19 years.