Dr. Fatimoh Lah of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) has advised parents on the need to start educating their children and wards on sex from ages 13 to 18.
Lah made the call while delivering a lecture organised by a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), Resource Builders Initiative, in Ilorin on Saturday.
In her lecture entitled: “The menace of sexual harassment and teenage pregnancy in our society”, she observed that some parents in Nigeria see sex education as an attempt to damage the moral conscience of a child.
“As a parent, if you fail to teach your children what they ought to know at home, surely they would be taught outside, which could even be late,” she said.
Lah further urged teenage girls to always seek redress at the appropriate quarters anytime they are sexually harassed.
According to her, pre-marital pregnancy in Nigeria is the highest in sub-Sahara Africa.
Speaking earlier at the occasion, the Founder of Resource Builders Initiative, Mr Abdullahi Abdulrazak, said pre-marital pregnancy among school age girls has been blamed largely on the prevalent poverty in the country.
He said that the level of poverty in Nigeria would have been reduced minimally if emphasis had been placed on sensitising the teenage girls on time.
“It is unfortunate that while parents, who are low income earners, could hardly meet up with the economic well- being of their children; the uninformed girls would compound the family’s woes through unwanted pregnancy.
“This vicious cycle would definitely revolve to the next generation, because an uninformed mother will beget illiterate children,” he said.
Abdulrazak stressed the urgent need for government at all levels to incorporate sex education into the school curriculum, so as to tutor the teenagers on the danger inherent in pre-marital sex. (NAN)
