● Sheikh Shaban speaking at the meeting

Mosque and other places of worship should not be used for chastise­ment but a place to embrace those considered wayward and reform them in love to become very responsible peo­ple in society.

Islamic Cleric in the Upper West Region Sheikh Shaban Mohammed Alhassan who said this, noted that oftentimes places of worship had been used to chastise people who were struggling with certain forms of secular addictions and had prevent such persons from approaching the places of worship for emotional sup­port and advice.

“Imagine a young girl going to a place of worship to confide in the Cleric about an unplanned pregnancy as an adolescent in a bid to get emotional support and words of encouragement when she is yet to get married; such news will definitely not be welcomed by a Cleric and the girl would definitely be chas­tised”, he said.

To this end, the Sheikh has advocated the establishment of adolescent corners at ma­jor mosques to help meet the needs of youth who had issues with receiving education on sexual and reproductive health.

The Islamic cleric made this known at a meeting on sexual and reproductive health at Wa by youth advoca­cy groups in the region.

He said that in order to achieve this, engagement meetings on sexual and repro­ductive health and adolescent sexual behaviours should include religious leaders so that they would be updated with happenings in that area and the role they were to play to curb the situation.

“When the Ghana Health Service for instance presents statistics on the number of children sexually active or use contraceptives within a specific time-frame because they want to indulge in sex to the clerics at such meetings, they will come to terms with the real happenings on the ground and accept to identify ways to assist in the educa­tion of these young ones”, he said.

He indicated that these statistics could assist the clerics in preparing their ser­mons to include issues of such nature and to sensitise the youth to abstinence.

The cleric who was con­cerned about the trend said some of his colleagues needed capacity building to be abreast of issues of the secular world and appreciate the need to freely talk about them and help educate the young ones.

He believed opening an adolescent corner at major mosques and equipping the facilities with a health worker who understood the word of God would help put adoles­cents in check and maintain responsible sexual behaviours amongst them.

From Lydia Darlington Fordjour, Wa