A Qualitative assessment of adolescent-parent sex talk in Ghana

Young people's views on sexuality in sub-Saharan Africa are poorly understood. We know little about what they think of their sexual upbringing and how it influences their sexual and reproductive health decisions and behaviors. Guided by feminism and an intersectionality framework, the current study uses narratives from purposefully sampled adolescents and parents from rural households within Adaklu District, one of the eighteen districts in the Volta Region of Ghana, to examine parents' and young people's perceptions of young adolescents' acquisition of sexuality knowledge, their sexual encounters and experiences, and the overall dynamics in educating young adolescents aged 16-19 years about sex. Specifically, we explored the types of sexuality issues parents discussed with their wards at home, and where appropriate, analyzed the inherent gender disparities in these discussions. Generally, parents agree that young people should know about sex. However, they emphasized that sexuality education should be age-specific and should be guided by cultural values and religious faith. Adolescents' exposure to multiple sources, including parental upbringing, the media, and information from peers, determines the extent they either engage or not engage in sexual activities. Parent-adolescent conversations were structured along gender lines, emphasizing adolescent girls' needs due to their perceived vulnerability compared to boys. While some of the findings support earlier views in terms of a very conservative, morally scripted way of training young people, it also suggests that young people's sexual upbringing is not as repressive as previous studies would make it appear. Young people keep pushing the boundaries as they develop agencies to learn about sex from multiple sources. Therefore, policies seeking to promote young people's sexual and reproductive rights in Ghana should pay close attention to what young people know about sex and how they know what they know, recognizing that their knowledge-seeking is part of human development and not inherently "bad".