ObjectiveTo examine the social and ethical challenges in enforcing sexual and reproductive rights of male and female adolescents abused at sexual debut in Ghana.MethodologyThis was a secondary analysis of cross‐sectional survey data on 278 sexually experienced male and female teenagers from 12 communities selected by cluster random sampling in the Ejisu‐Juben district. We extracted relevant data from a 2009 academic thesis project involving 481 respondents. We assessed differences between sexual debut experiences of males and females using Pearson's chi‐square and ANOVA tests. P‐values ≤0.05 were considered significant.ResultsMean ages at sexual debut for males and females were 16.05 ± 1.8 and 15.98 ± 1.47 years respectively (P=0.719). Adolescents of both sexes experienced defilement and forced sexual debut; similar proportions had early sexual debut. Females who had early sexual debut were more likely than their older counterparts to have low educational attainment and induced abortion.ConclusionsMany male and female adolescents experience sexual and reproductive rights breaches at sexual debut. Prevailing circumstances hinder optimization of sexual and reproductive rights of juveniles in Ghana. We recommend making clear provisions for young persons in the law on sexual offences in the criminal code to facilitate development of interventions to improve access to justice for offenders and victims.

Objective: Alcohol has become a regular part of social functions in many cultures. Before the advent of alcohol use disorder becoming a nosological entity, many cultures noted the detrimental association with alcohol use, particularly in its excess use. With such observation, many cultures and even medical research, have tried in many ways to either justify or explain away the harmful effects of alcohol use and gone ahead to promote the use for the most mundane effects. Such explanations for alcohol use over time become acceptable in many cultures and can be viewed asmyths. Four of such myths associated with alcohol use in Ghana, are presented here. Methodology: These myths were drawn from a bigger study that looked at the prevalence of alcohol use disorder in an engineering company with mixed methods. A thematic analysis of their responses was used to arrive at these myths. Results: Participants believed that alcohol is sexually potentiating, improves appetite and quality of sleep, and has medicinal qualities like “curing” chicken pox and necessary for successful surgery. Apart from the inconclusive evidence of alcohol, particularly red wine,protecting against cardiovascular death, we could not substantiate any of these claims from medicine. Conclusion: Myths of alcohol use in different cultures need to be incorporated in preventive strategies adopted for alcohol use disorder for a comprehensive public health approach to curb the menace. Such myths should be integrated in the training of health workers to help them understand the addictive behaviour of alcohol users and the anthropological underpinnings to alcohol use.