By Hassan I. Conteh

Marie Stopes Sierra Leone has engaged journalists at a workshop meant to raise awareness on reducing adolescent pregnancy and deaths at birth and on ending child marriage in Sierra Leone.

The training, which was conducted on Thursday May 15, 2025, at a conference hall at Wharf Road, Deep Eye Water, in Western Area Rural District, brought together media practitioners in Freetown and those from the provinces and other staff members of Marie Stopes Sierra Leone.

Speaking at the program, Marie Stopes Sierra Leone’s Advocacy and Outreach Manager, Sandy Massaquoi, said the people of Sierra Leone need to know what the document is about.

The document which was explained to journalists is entitled “National Strategy for the Reduction of Adolescent Pregnancy and Ending Child Marriage.”

Mr Massaquoi told participants at the program that the said  document serves as a guide to Marie Stopes and its partners including six (6) line ministries of the government of Sierra Leone.

“It is not only about adolescents; it is about our women all in Sierra Leone. Nowadays, children as young as eight (8) years are getting pregnant.That is why we bring the use of the term down to adolescent pregnancy instead of teenage pregnancy because of this changes in child reproduction,” he said.

He said Marie Stopes’ Youth for Health Project,  started June 2022 and its implementation will end June 2025.

Under this three years project, which covers Port Loko, Kambia and Western Area Rural District, they targeted 12,000 adolescent girls across the three districts in Sierra Leone.

“We understood that nurses often maltreat pregnant adolescent girls who go to these health facilities to either seek advice or to get treated. The attitude of our health workers also frustrate most pregnant girls and children.”

“We were able to reduce teenage pregnancy within this periods covered through knowledge sharing by organizing school clubs, engaging service providers and health providers.”

Mr Massaquoi said if negative attitudes by health workers in hospitals toward adolescent girls and women continue there will be what he refers to as “heath crisis” in the country.

Marie Stopes, which focuses on family planning and reproductive health care especially pre-abortion care, started operation in Sierra Leone since 1986.

It now has seven (7) branches across the country with a wide presence on social media.

Victor Karim, Communications Admin. Specialist at National Secretariat of Teenage Pregnancy, said the first strategy on ending child marriage was launched years back in 2013 spanning from 2013 – 2015; the second strategy ( The Hands of Our Girls) was launched in 2018 as a guiding document between 2018 – 2022.

He said the new strategy will serve as a guiding framework for all stakeholders to plan and implement the needed actions during 2025 – 2030 period.

He said while the rate of adolescents pregnancies have declined globally, Africa is still having more cases.

“Currently, 640 million girls and women alive today were married before 18. Child marriage is marriage below the age of 18 years. And adolescent pregnancy and child marriage are closely associated problems,” he said.

Mr Karim said the number of deaths by adolescent girls in Sierra Leone is pretty high due to girls’ habits of engaging in early sex life which results to too many health reproductive complications.

He said their 2019 report shows that the proportion of adolescents treated for Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) both increased from 16.8% in 2013 to 44.2 % in 2019.