Associate Professor at the University of Cape Coast, Prof. Georgina Yaa Oduro has called for a multi-stakeholder approach to deal with the growing cohabitation situation among Ghanaian youths, especially University students.
This call follows research conducted by a team led by Prof. Georgina Oduro highlighting the high rise in cohabitation among university students.
Prof. Georgina Oduro, a research specialist in gender issues, sexualities and reproductive health notes that cohabitation has implications on the learner’s academic performance in which one party, especially the females uses their time to perform chores, including cooking whilst the other party is studying.
She said other effects the research uncovered included reproductive health challenges like Sexually Transmitted Infections (S)TIs, abusive use of contraceptives, teenage pregnancies, or pregnancies generally, and abortions.
“Some were talking about this emergency contraceptive, for example, which literature shows it’s supposed to be once in six months at most. But sometimes these people make it like an everyday pill. So, you have unprotected sex and then you’re always taking an emergency contraceptive. So, there were challenges. At the end of the day, it’s the female gender that suffers more,” Prof. Yaa Oduro added.
She suggested advocacy, sensitization, and education as some techniques that can be adopted to curb the menace, adding that the churches, media, health professionals, traditional authorities, and counsellors all have roles to play.
The study conducted at the University of Cape Coast by a team of about six researchers led by Prof. Yaa Oduro also revealed that students residing in private hostels compared to those living at the traditional halls of residence cohabit.
This situation is attributed to the limited or no supervision present in private hostels compared to the traditional halls where there are stringent rules and regulations to regulate students’ conduct.
Prof. Yaa Oduro noted, “The private hostel accommodation brings in some laziness, and some freedom, which the traditional halls will not allow comparatively because you can’t move into someone’s room with a roommate and stay there for a whole semester. The halls will not allow that. But comparatively, if I’m single and, I’ve rented a hostel, and you’re moving, we can accommodate each other.”
Prof. Yaa Oduro, also the Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, UCC, revealed that there were a few instances where students who were in a normal relationship due to financial constraints or in a consensus manner put their funds together and rented a single accommodation where they stayed together as couples.
The study which was conducted in some adjourning communities established that cohabitation is prevalent among the youths contributing to teenage pregnancy and child marriage.
She also observed that teenage pregnancies trigger cohabitation relationships in that the young girls who get pregnant in relationships with older people are usually sacked out of their homes by their parents.
This according to her, forces the young girls to stay with their partners thereby cohabiting with them.
“So, when you are sad, you move in and join Kwesi and then you start a cohabiting relationship. So, this one, we call it a pregnancy-induced or triggered cohabiting relationship,” she explained.
Cohabitation is a state of living together, having a sexual relationship, and performing marriage duties without being married.
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Source: Eric Sekyi/ATLFMNEWS
