Volta floods: Monitor young girls to avoid outbursts of teenage pregnancies

The Paramount Chief of Ziavi, Togbe Kwaku Ayim IV, has called on parents in the flood-hit areas to monitor their children around the clock to prevent an ‘explosion’ of teenage pregnancies during the crisis.

He said while some teenagers were putting up in camps and perching with friends, their likelihood of becoming wayward could not be ruled out.

Togbe Ayim was speaking at the palace of the Paramount Chief of Mepe before the presentation of foodstuffs, relief items and an undisclosed amount of money to flood victims in Mepe by member communities of the Avazorli Union last Friday.

The Avazorli Union is made up of Ziavi, Kpedze-Todze, Etordome, Botoku, Ando (Ghana and Togo), Kpando-Anyigbe and Mepe.

The items worth about GH¢20,000 included plantains, cassava dough, corn flour, maize, a consignment of sachet water and bales of clothes.

Togbe Ayim, who led the Avazorli delegation to Mepe, said while parents were enduring the stress of the floods, they must not lose guard on their responsibility to keep their children on the right path.

“If our daughters get pregnant in these hard times, their education would definitely be affected,” he cautioned.

Togbe Ayim also urged the people of Mepe to avoid all divisive tendencies to remain united and wait for the return to normalcy with a joint front.

The elders in the palace who received the items thanked the other members of the Avazorli Union for the gesture, saying it bore ample testimony of the strong bond of kinship among members of the union, of which Mepe was a member.

The palace elders described the donation as very touching and gave an assurance that the items would be shared among the flood victims equitably.

Ancestry 

The Avazorli Union trace their ancestry from Goshen in ancient Egypt through Notsie in the present-day Republic of Togo, where they were once an identifiable group, before fleeing in a mass exodus from the tyrannical rule of King Agorkoli to their present locations in Ghana, with the Ando Group in both Ghana and Togo.

To foster unity and cohesion among them, a union was formed in 1984, which culminated in its launch in Ziavi in 1987, where the name Avazorli Union was unveiled.