Safeguarding Adolescent Girls in Senior High Schools in Ghana to Enhance Human Resources for Sustainable Development

In Ghana, cases of young girls being abused in schools have increased. This study has sought to establish the drivers for this development, using both quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect and analyse data from five senior high schools (SHSs) located in five different administrative districts in Ghana, selected using the simple random sampling technique. The conclusion from the study is that 53 per cent of the adolescent girls in SHSs reported not being safe. The study has established that inadequate school infrastructure, parental neglect of responsibilities to provide basic needs to young girls, and weak enforcement of child safeguarding policies and protocols were responsible for girls’ feeling unsafe. It has been discovered that the Young Female Platform (YFP) established in some SHSs to provide reproductive health education and leadership skills is an empowering approach for girls to exercise the right to dignity. The need to expand the YFP concept to all SHSs in Ghana, the inclusion of dignity kits on the list of items provided under the Ghana Free Senior High School Programme (GFSHSP), and decentralising the sanctioning power of the Ghana Education Service (GES) were among the recommendations tabled to eliminate the abuse of girls in Ghana’s SHSs.