CAUSES OF SEXUAL PROMISCUITY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS OF OVIA NORTH EAST OF EDO STATE AND ITS COUNSELING IMPLICATIONS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background to the Study
At the secondary school level, most female students are at the adolescent stage, a developmental period which can decide a person’s current and future health. This is because it is at this time that individuals begin to make independent decisions about health-risk and health-enhancing behaviour. According to Cha (2005), Physiological, psychological and cognitive changes associated with sexual dispositions are experienced during this period. Thus, it is not unusual for adolescents to have the physical characteristics of adults in early adolescence and yet have the limited psychological, social and cognitive development consistent with childhood. Risky premarital sexual behaviour, one of the major problems of adolescence, is a result of the developmental characteristics of adolescence.
No other single age group sustains the negative health outcomes from their sexual behaviour as the adolescents. Adolescent girls contribute 55% of all clandestine abortions in the country, and the national HIV zero-prevalence figure for age 15-19 years is 3.6% (Bankole, Oye-Adeniran, Singh, Adewole, Sedgh and Hussain, 2006 and Fatusi and Blum, 2008).Sexual immorality is an area which many people find strange because it is one of the most complex and most controversial areas to venture into in contemporary times. Many people would think of the discussion on sexual immorality as a taboo that culture or custom forbids. Adults in the community frown at sexual immorality because it is a taboo and it brings shame to the family and relations of girls who happen to be victims of the act.
What is most astonishing is that in Kogi state, female students in secondary schools cannot be isolated from this contagion affecting adolescents. Sexual immorality among female students in Kogi state secondary schools is a menace in the society. According to Omotunde (1987) the adults have created the conditions for the spread of sexual immorality by exposing the youths to temptations. This they do by selling pornographic films, books and sexually suggestive music which materials stimulate adolescents’ curiosity and engender their ability to experiment on what they see, read and hear.
Coupled with the enhanced biological growth resulting from the chemicals from food crops, secondary school girls consider themselves adults capable of all sexual requirements. Often, the religious and cultural restraints are ignored. According to Adeola (2011), “there are many school girls out there who are going through difficult and horrible situations either because they did not know the problem or they thought the situation was not going to be that terrible. For many of the girls who are caught up in sexual immorality, it has been just a game of daring the impossible after knowing well that the horrors of falling into it are enormous”. This study, therefore, tries to find out the main causes of promiscuity among secondary school students in Ovia North East of Edo state.
