By Abdulai Fasineh Dumbuya
Girl child education across the world requires multifaceted interventions by governments, NGOs and other key players such as human rights groups and partners so they can grow viably against any throes in life. In order to compete with their male counterparts, state actors should continue strengthening the existing laws which would see the promotion of girl-child issues in the country – not continuing to renege on the laws.
The world over, the hike in the number of school girl pregnancy, hit a very disturbing rate. According to WHO, every year an estimated 21 million girls aged 15–19 years in developing regions become pregnant and approximately 12 million of them give birth. Sierra Leone is not an exception to this shock.
When a girl becomes pregnant, her life changes dramatically which will likely lead to her dropping out of school, which means her future employment prospect also diminishes, making her more vulnerable to poverty, exclusion, and illness. In fact, pregnancy is the second leading cause of death after self-harm globally, among girls aged 15-19.
It is almost as it is in every other part of the world; teenage pregnancy has become a towering conduit through which girls drop out of school, partly making some liability to society, while a low proportion of them would revert to schooling.
In Sierra Leone, teenage pregnancy is especially affecting girls and young women’s health and their social, economic, and political empowerment, while making childbearing a difficult thing for them.
Teenage pregnancy comes as a result of many things one of which is gender based violence and sexual penetration of minors among others which has led to many drops out of school girls and as such, their future becomes bleak and uncertain.
2015 is considered the twilight year of a spate of pregnancy in Sierra Leone, the then Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Dr Minkailu Bah, issued a Ministerial Policy banning visibly pregnant schoolgirls from attending schools because of the growing number of pregnant schoolgirls at the time.
Although the government of Sierra Leone created alternative schools for some girls, they were not accessible and did not offer the same quality of education as mainstream schools. The ban prohibiting pregnant schoolgirls from attending school amounted to a double violation of girls’ rights, considering that many were survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV). Due to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone in 2014, many girls were impregnated-victims of child abuse. The law gravely impacted the lives of many girls.
Moving forward, in 2020, President Julius Maada Bio reversed the ban and allowed all pregnant girls irrespective of age to go back to school following his announcement that, the“Government of Sierra Leone has lifted the ban prohibiting pregnant schoolgirls from attending school”.
Many people were happy about this while some were not. Khadijatu Sesay (not her real name) was one of the people that considered the ban as welcoming news, as she explained that it was not only timely, but also needed to facelift the girl child education exponentially.
According to her, the ban turned many schoolgirls into dropouts. She explained how she was abused by her uncle whom she and her elder sister stayed with after the death of their parents.
“It was not a good experience for me because after being abused by my uncle and getting pregnant for him, I was forced to drop out of school because girls like us were not allowed to go to school,” she said.
There are many other girls like Khadija who left school because of similar circumstances and, therefore, could not continue their education. Much as many of them had to switch dreams because of their denial to attend school, some had to choose other alternatives that might be crude to their livelihoods. Notwithstanding the fact that some victims are happy about this, other people are against it saying that it has caused more harm than good.
Memunatu Kalokoh, a parent of one of the victims, blames the government for the recent upsurge in pregnancy among schoolgirls. She noted that her daughter, even in the face of her stern upbringing, was influenced by her friend who was pregnant and still going to school. She said allowing pregnant girls to go to school while pregnant is not a good idea.
However, she applauded First Lady Fatima Bio for her sound initiative known as “Hands Off Our Girls”. She said the initiative could lead to a a drastic reduction in pregnancy among schoolgirls, referencing the campaign, as a tool to solicit safer places for schoolgirls in the country.
She said since the introduction of the First Lady’s initiative, people have seen over the years a U-turn in rape and teenage pregnancy. Nonetheless, she said even with campaign and constant advocacies, cases of rape and girl child abuse are still prevalent in the country.
President Julius Maada Bio on 14 December 2018, officially launched the ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ flagship programme of First Lady Fatima Bio with the theme: “Ending Child Marriage and Reducing Teenage Pregnancy to Empower Women”. Sierra Leone’s president promised that his government will ensure that men who rape have no place in our society and also any man who rapes will be jailed forever so that a single rape becomes the last rape.
The first lady Fatima Bio, in her statement at the launch of the Hands Off Our Girls, said that any man who rapes or places any form of violence against women and girls is not a real man and does not fit in any decent society.
She added: “Almost all girls who are raped are most likely to drop out of school. If the girl- child is forced into early marriage, the bride price lasts only for two months. But if the girl child is cared for until she finishes her education, the benefit to the parents lasts forever”.
These days, at the peak of digitalization, things are going from bad to worse. The emergence of the internet has redefined the activities of students. It is almost as if the presence of the internet which is a powerful instrument to ginger the schooling of students has done more harm than good. After the advent of media and the introduction of new players like citizen journalists and bloggers, there has been competition among school students.
The media has undermined the creativity of students; it has become the bane of classroom education too. The exposure of young girls to some of the harsh contents on social media spaces can lead them to the streets since their peers are evolving in it without any coercion.
Undeterred, very recently, the country’s Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Irish Aid re-integrated 2,015 (two thousand, and fifteen) out-of-school girls into formal education across the country. This action does not only speak of empowering girls but it also indicates the lead going forward with the litany of challenges these girls face.
In the face of all this, it is important to note that even though there have been extensive campaigns on teenage pregnancy, rape, and other child abuse-related cases, which are held in court every day, people are constantly perverting the law. It is in this regard that I am eagerly calling on the government, the opposition parties, NGOs, civil society organisations, and development partners and agencies to institute stiffer penalties against extreme acts displayed by some ill-intent people in the society whose only solace comes from rape, in addition to the already existing efforts such as the sexual offences court to fast track sex-related offences.
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