For many years there has been an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of sex education in schools.

There has been a conflict between providing children with the knowledge about sex and destroying their innocence at a very young age.

Teenage pregnancy has been a major social and health-related issue worldwide.

According to a publication by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), Motherhood in Childhood, each year, adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 years in low- and middle-income countries have an estimated 21 million pregnancies, nearly half of which 10 million are unintended.

Opal Palmer Adisa, a gender specialist told Our Today that while the education system is the best vehicle or mechanism to deal with sex education, it has to be more diverse to equip young people to understand their feelings and emotions.

“One of the things about sex education is that we tend to focus strictly on the biological and physical changes that boys and girls go through at adolescent, and we don’t deal with the emotions or sensational feelings that happen to them,” she added.

She also noted that teenagers need to be educated about their sexual feelings and urges in order reduce the risk of teenage pregnancy.

Adisa outlined that the school curriculum should also include work materials for parents to learn about their children’s bodies and changes.

“A lot of parents don’t know about the bodily changes and the irregularities and the mood swings that their children are experiencing. So those things also have to be explained to them because many of them don’t know. They didn’t get it at school, and they did not get it from their parents,” she outlined.

The impact of cultural norms

The gender specialist outlined that there needs to be a cultural change in how girls and boys are socialised.

“There has to be change in the way in how the culture defines girls and boys. We have a tendency to say girls are fast because they have breast, the way in which they walk, which to some adults may be interpreted as fast-and therefore we accuse them,” she noted.

She expressed that girls from a lower socio-economic background are often targets for older men who use their finances to make sexual advances.

“One of the very prominent issues is that of girls who are coming from poorer or inner communities, where they don’t have resources or they don’t get enough money for lunch-men are able to see this very easily and offer very innocently initially to give them pocket money or buy an outfit and that leads to sexual favours,” she said.

She said this issue of teenage pregnancy has both social and economic impacts on society.

“It has large economic and social ramifications because it means a potential worker with expertise and skills does not get that expertise and skills, hence they are young, unprepared and have little to no parenting skills,” she outlined.

Adisa further added that there needs to be greater legislation to ensure that men who impregnate teenage girls are prosecuted and held accountable to their financial obligations.