An Evaluation of the Current State of Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights of Women In Ghana

OBJECTIVE:

To provide a current account of women's sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Ghana (West Africa), a priority area in achieving the World Health Organization's Millennium Development Goals.

METHOD:

The study was observational. Three-hundred ninety Ghanaian women attending cervical cancer screening were surveyed about their SRHR. The data were analyzed with chi-squared test (p ≤ 0.05, two-sided).

RESULTS:

22.1% had a life-time history of non-consensual sexual experience and 55.4% a previous history of abortion, mostly using services of a registered clinic (68.5%). Experience of sexual violence increased life-time risk of abortion. The overall use of contraceptives was high (>60%); however, condom use during sexual intercourse with a new partner was low (23%), even among the highly educated women (32.7%) and women who stated to have received information on the risks and benefits of condom use (26.0%). Although condom use among the highly educated women was low, it was still 2 times higher than among the lower educated women, 15.7%. There was also less condom use among the women with multiple sexual partners compared to single-partnered women.

CONCLUSION:

More than a decade after the inception of the Millennium Development Goals, there is still work to be done in Ghana, especially on education and sexual violence.

Via: http://ht.ly/RRKhO 

By: Adjei B1, Wolterbeek R, Peters AA.

• 1a Leiden University Medical Center , The Hague , The Netherlands .