Transcript
KOFFI KOUAME: This theme is basically looking at family planning. It is an important programme, particularly for empowering young girls and women to complete their education and have a quality life. PNG, we are the biggest population in the Pacific island countries and our population growth rate is about 3.1%, it is very high and every 25 years we double our population. It is a huge challenge for us, this country, and it is important for the team to ensure that we provide the information to our people to understand the issues of family planning.
KORO VAKA'UTA: What seem to be the biggest challenges for the agency going forward in PNG?
KK: The biggest challenge we have here is the implementation of the family programme in the country, including how big the country is and the literacy of the population. The important thing is to ensure we provide all the family planning commodities to all the health facilities.
KV: A few years ago a statistic was quoted as up to a third of teenagers in Papua New Guinea could experience teen pregnancy, have you made an impact in that area?
KK: The bulk of the population of PNG is under 25 years old, over 60%. They will be the future parents. We are doing every effort with our organisation here through our programme with the university and also through the Department of Education and also through the programme to provide advocation, provide information for young people to have access to the family planning services. It's a huge challenge and it is a big country. We are doing what we can do, even though the indicators show otherwise but we make efforts to ensure the young people have access to this information and also the services that are provided.
KV: And are there any new programmes or launches happening, to look forward to on the horizon?
KK: We're working with our partners. We are now with a new country programme from 2018-2022 we will focus more on the Education Department to ensure we put in comprehensive sexual education in schools. So one of the challenges we face is we need to empower the teachers to teach the subject and also importantly make more parents aware of the issues of teenage pregnancy and particularly the young girls who need to have babies when they are over 18 because the body will be fully developed and important that a young person or young man to ensure that he is mature enough to take responsibility to look after a child. These are the challenges we face.
KV: In terms of sexual education, is it even more of a challenge in Papua New Guinea? Are there any cultural obstacles?
KK: Yes definitely there is a huge cultural challenge. Mainly parents opposing it. Even the churches particularly would oppose teaching of the subject. It is too early they said and the programme could advocate for early sexual experience but I think it is important for parents to be aware that if we don't get information and provide the right information and informed choice to the young people, they will go out experiment and get into trouble. It's a challenge for the community as well to understand but if you go out to the community in PNG you will see the girls who are married off early and you will start to see girls aged 15 or even less and will start to having babies and many of them come with complications. Many of them have illegal abortions. So these are some of the challenges we see and issues and how we could empower with information.
