Outspoken Former Deputy Minister of Communications, Victoria Hammah says the concept of virginity being the pride of every lady is completely outmoded, misplaced and needs to be revised.
She believes the state of being poor should be more worrying to any girl than her virginity because it’s what eventually will translate to the economy and the general outlook of a country.
The former broadcaster whilst recounting her days as an activist on campus against issues she felt needed attention, mentioned that “There was an upsurge of virgin clubs in the country. They used to dress up young girls and parade them around as virgins and it was gaining grounds, it was a consecutive element, I’m talking about religious organisations, traditional institutions”.
“There’s no pride in that, you should rather be worried when you are poor; not your virginity. There’s no pride in that. When you go to China and you go to Russia, the girls there have been thought how to apply themselves to contribute to the development of society”, she continued.
According to her, prominence should be placed much more on personal development of every female in areas of education and women empowerment such that they are well-equipped and ready to face the pressures of life, contributing effectively and efficiently in various fields to the development of society.
Priding in virginity Miss Hammah stressed, is a wrong notion where the value of a woman lies in “some hymen, some skin inside their vagina”.
“Society is changing, it is saying that today a woman can be educated, informed, participate in decision-making and we have seen the positive effects of all these processes when we empower a woman, we see how it’s not just an individual improvement, it improves a whole community. So we raise that debate that rather than investing scarce resources into brain-washing girls that their value lies in some hymen, some skin inside their vagina, that’s not what we need as society. What we need is to invest in the girl-child for education, invest in the girl-child to protect their rights in socio-cultural issues and also to empower them to contribute positively to society”, she maintained.
Regarding girl-child education on the essence of abstaining from sex and preserving one’s purity through virginity till after marriage, she described as a ‘lost society’ any group of persons who will invest resources in that area rather than introducing the girl-child to sex in their early stages and providing for them several options including condoms for protection so they can avoid unwanted pregnancies and dreadful diseases such as HIV/AIDs.
“I think that any society that will invest resources in that is a lost society. There’s no value in that. If you look at societies that is advancing in tech, health, leadership governance, they do not invest in that. If you take the United States for example at the high school level, they are introduced to sex. In this day and age, the average young person in Ghana probably has access to smartphone so they are interconnected in a way that we may not even be aware about it. Several societies have a way of protecting the young ones. They even provide them with condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancy, so they are given early sexual education,” she asserted.
“We are ostriches. We did a lot of effective campaigning about HIV, I don’t know the statistics now but I read somewhere that the Aids menace is increasing and that’s alarming, so we have to invest in that”, she noted.
