Guard against indiscriminate sex - Youth told

Gomoa Dawurampong (C/R), April 10, GNA - The Gomoa District Community Development Officer, Miss Vivien Bentum, has cautioned the youth against indulging in premarital sex to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS.

She urged them to refrain from things that would have an adverse effect on their lives in future including excessive intake of alcohol. "You must be healthy to enable you to cater for your parents and your family", she advised.

Miss Bentum was addressing a youth rally at Dawurampong said that it was not true that when one abstained from sex he or she would become timid and pointed out that it was a ploy by some unscrupulous people to drive the youth into early sex.

Mr Edmund Osei Kwakye, District Disease Control Officer spoke on illegal abortion and warned that it was only recognised health institutions, which could terminate pregnancy when it was detected that the life of the mother would be in danger if it was allowed to stay. Mr Kwakye said illegal abortion was a criminal offence, which could land the perpetrators in jail.

It can also lead to bareness she said and expressed regrets that women who lost their fertility through abortions later turned round to accuse their grand mothers of using witchcraft to deny them of children. A similar rally, which formed part of a Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana project to promote adolescent sexual reproductive health, had earlier been held at Mumford.