5. Conclusions and Recommendations
· Times have changed, so are the societal values. Many adolescents begin sexual activity at an early age and also become mothers while still young. This exposes them to reproductive health problems including morbidity and mortality, and thus need sex education to be introduced to them at an early age.
· Most of the girl-children and mothers still have their education limited to primary and secondary levels. This implies that life skills in reproductive health have to be introduced at these levels which they can use themselves and be able to pass them over in the future to their children.
· Many mothers are now facing the challenge of bringing up their daughters (and children) either as single mothers or in polygamous marriages. This exposes the daughter to her mother most of the time with minimal input from the father. In many such families, mothers are often too busy with day-to-day life hustles and are left with little time to attend to their adolescent daughters' health problems. .
· There are a number of sources of information about sexuality and HIV/AIDS in both urban and rural communities. Among all these, still parents, especially mothers have a central role in providing more moral messages where other sources may put less emphasis.
· Most mothers now talk directly to their daughters on issues of sexuality and HIV/AIDS. Others still make efforts to access their daughters to sex education messages available in their communities.
· Mothers talk to their daughters on a wide range of issues that have traditionally been taught to adolescents. However, with the emergence of the HIV/AIDS scourge, more emphasis is put on protecting adolescents on the dangers of acquiring this illness.
· Mothers use different occasions to give sex education messages to their daughters. On many of these occasions, a wide range of sexual and reproductive health issues are discussed and there are enough occasions at which mothers can provide sex education to their daughters.
· Both mothers and daughters experience communication problems talking on issues of sexuality and HIV/AIDS. The conflicting moral and cultural obligations greatly influence the kind of messages that mothers have to communicate to their daughters, while others lack the necessary skills to undertake this task.
· Where as the information adolescents get from their mothers and outside sources does not differ much in content, saliently, many of these sources still put little emphasis on condom promotion as a way of promoting adolescent sexual health.
· Many mothers still trust the traditional sources of providing sex education to adolescent girls. Up to date, many mothers still use aunties and counselors to provide sex education to their daughters.
· Times have changed, so have life values. New innovations need to be made to catch up with the challenges of early initiation of sexual activity that has become so widespread among adolescents. Among these is the promotion of condom use among adolescent girls.
· The social-economic emancipation of the girl-child and the woman in general, still remains pivotal in addressing the social needs of women. If girls and indeed women are to benefit from reproductive health life skills, literacy in general must continue to be up lifted among the girl-children.
· Parents and peers were focal in the provision of sex information to children. Many children follow what their parents or peers tell them or practice. Thus, interventions should make efforts to target parents and peers, as these are cost effective ways of passing on health education messages.
· Many parents lack skills to talk to their children on sex matters. Many express this as being shy, insufficient or even admitting of not knowing what and how to talk to their daughters. There is, thus, a need to equip mothers with appropriate IEC skills on sexuality and HIV/AIDS to better talk to their daughters.
· Traditional and out of the family sources have a role to play in communicating sex messages to adolescents, especially on issues that may attest moral and cultural values of society and these should continue to be exposed to adolescent children.
