The PAM group, which aims at enhancing parent- child communication, was formed with four people selected from each beneficiary District - Talensi, Nabdam, Bongo, Bawku West, Kassena Nankana West and Builsa South in the Upper East Region.

Mr James Twene, the Upper East Regional Director of the Department of Gender, said it is important to form and train the group as parents are the primary educators of their children especially in the area of sexual and reproductive health.

He said the training would help parents to appreciate the need to maintain a favorable environment and a good interpersonal relationship with their children so that adolescent girls can freely share information with their parents on issues affecting them.

He said the Gender Department in May 2019, organised mentorship programmes for adolescent girls and also engaged their male counterparts by forming men and boys clubs.

Madam Georgina Aberese- Ako, a child protection officer, urged parents to listen to the views of their children in the effort to help them.

Madam Mollydean Zong Buntuya, the Girls Education Officer of the Talensi District, said teenage pregnancy in the area was mainly caused by negligence on the part of parents.

She said many parents would often entrust their children in the care of relatives where they could end up falling prey to teenage pregnancy and dropping out of school and urged them not to use poverty as a reason to neglect their children.

She some parents also thwart the efforts of their daughters to pursue higher education by refusing to support in the rehabilitation process of the teenage girls who have given birth and want to go back to school.

Madam Buntuya said the call to fight teenage pregnancy and child marriages in the society is a collective responsibility and appealed to government to consider reviewing some educational policies which does not favour the girl child.