By Kemo Cham
Mary is one of the lucky generation of Sierra Leonean teenage girls. Despite being pregnant, she had the opportunity to attend school like a normal girl.
Two years ago, Mary’s story would have been different, due to a ban on girls with visible pregnancies.
Imposed in 2010, that ban was part of a policy the government said was meant to discourage pregnant girls from influencing their peers. It was enforced in 2015, at the height of the West African Ebola epidemic, when extensive lockdowns worsened poverty levels in Sierra Leone, exposing women and girls to sexual exploitation.
Sierra Leone had long been battling the phenomenon of teenage pregnancy, one of the legacies of its civil war.
The number of teen mothers rose dramatically thanks to the Ebola restrictions.
Thousands of girls were affected by the ban, many of whom eventually dropped out of school. Some were probably even given off for marriage to the same men responsible for their plight.
UNFPA data show that more than 14,000 girls became pregnant by the end of the epidemic, including 11,000 who were already in school prior to the outbreak.
Years of advocacy against the policy culminated in an action at the Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The Women Against Violence and Exploitation in Society (WAVES), which operates in the southern district of Bo, was one of the groups behind the campaign.
Hannah Yambasu, Executive Director WAVES, says the ban was akin to punishing the girls for a crime that they were victims of.
“These girls were sexually penetrated. Somebody impregnated them because of their vulnerability.” she says.
WAVES advocates against policies and traditions that hinder the progress of women and girls, like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Child Marriage, and Teenage Pregnancy.
Campaigners say all three phenomena have one thing in common: they hinder education of girls and expose them to a whole lot of health complications.
Opponents of FGM say it’s a barbaric practice with no medical benefit. The act of initiating underage girls makes it even more contentious, especially in light of growing number of reported deaths associated with it. In the last five months alone, WAVES has recorded three fatalities in its operational area.
Efforts to ban FGM has met stiff resistance from a society that sees the campaign as an affront to its culture and traditions. And supporters have been galvanized by the politicization of the practice.
According to the Sierra Leone Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2017, the country was home to 800, 000 child brides, of which 400, 000 were married before age 15.
Sierra Leone has the 17th highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Africa, where deaths due to the phenomenon is highest in the world, according UN data. Some 28% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 in the country have children, according to a 2019 UNFPA data.
Deaths as a result of complications from teenage pregnancies account for 40 percent of maternal mortality in Sierra Leone - 717 deaths per 100,000 live births - according to the 2019 Sierra Leone Demographic Health Survey, one of the highest in the world.
Highly divisive policy
In spite of these grim figures, the conservative posture of the Sierra Leonean society means that there is little sympathy for the plight of victims of these scourges. This explains why the pregnant school girl ban was highly divisive, even among rights campaigners.
“The civil society community said it’s immoral. How could we vow for girls who were pregnant to sit in class with their colleagues? They said they would influence their colleagues and the schools would be packed with pregnant girls,” Mrs Yambasu recalls the backlash against her challenging the ban in court.
Nearly two years after the case was filed, judges ruled against the “discriminatory” policy that denied girls their right to education. Sierra Leone was found to be in breach of its commitments and responsibility under both local and international laws, with particular reference to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention Against Discrimination in Education.
While looking forward to the full implementation of the court’s recommendations, WAVES sought to exploit the golden opportunity the ruling offered, with the objective of preventing more girls from falling victim of the prevailing status quo, which had been exacerbated by the ban.
Through support from Equality Now, WAVES set up the Safe Space project, which provides a sort of a sanctuary for not just pregnant girls but also those who are at risk of exploitation. Its ultimate goal is to ensure that girls access education.
Equality Now is an international NGO which advocates for human rights of women and girls. Jean Paul Murunga, Programme Officer for the Nairobi-based NGO’s ‘End Sexual Violence campaign’, says the project revealed how difficult access to justice is for girls in Sierra Leone.
“The population supports sexual violence because of inequalities that exist in society, where girls are seen as sexual objects. And this is something we are working against within the social norms so that girls are able to report violations,” he says.
The Safe Space is implemented in three districts – Bo, Kenema and Freetown. Girls like Mary, who have already fallen victim of exploitation, go through their phase in life without pressure from the outside world. They work with mentors, who coach them on survival skills in the context of issues like child marriage, FGM, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy and hygiene.
Theresa Momoh, a teacher at the Ahmaddiya Primary School in Blama, Small Bo in nearby Kenema District, mentors 16 girls. She explains that the space basically serves as a protection against outside negative influences.
“After normal classes, we try to keep them busy by providing extra lessons. We also engage in extracurricular activities, like playing Ludo and Cards, to keep them distracted from the temptations of society,” she says.
Theresa’s school is literally surrounded by a Bondo Bush on one side and a ‘Ghetto’ on another end.
The Bondo bush is where girls are initiated into Bondo - the rites of passage - during which they are subjected to FGM.
Ghetto’ is a hangout for usually unemployed boys who mostly engaging in all sorts of antisocial behaviours.
Bothe groups pose serious threats to young girls.
At the Bondo bush they could get forcefully initiated, while the boys pose danger of impregnating them, says Theresa.
Although she insists that she hasn’t heard of a case of forced initiation, there have been several reports of it elsewhere in the country. And because of this Theresa has to make sure that the gurls are closely guarded.
“We tell the Bondo people that once a girl is in her uniform and they initiate them, we will pursue them through the law. And we make sure that they do not even go near the Ghetto,” she says.
Head Teacher Mathew Bobo Kobba of the Seventh Day Adventist Primary School in Nyegbenga, Nyawale Chiefdom, Bo District, has collaborated with the Safe Space to foil several attempts to initiate underage pupils into FGM.
Mr Kobba however recalls watching helplessly as one of his star pupils dropped out of the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) last year, after getting pregnant.
With the help of the Safe Space, the girl was provided all the support she needed to go through her education. And because she was underage, the case was treated as rape. The perpetrator, a man in the village, was tracked down with the help of the police and prosecuted.
In these Safe Spaces are also girls who serve as ambassadors for their peers, like 18-year-old Hannah Smith and 14-year-old Hawa Tucker. They use knowledge gained in the space to enlighten other girls in their schools and their communities.
But the involvement of these girls in this advocacy at this young stage of their lives illustrates the sad reality of the uphill battle for the safety and right to access education for girls in Sierra Leone.
Lifting of the ban was just the beginning, and it’s just one of several recommendations by the Court, which also ordered the government to put in place measures to reduce teenage pregnancies and to sensitize communities against discrimination of victims.
In spite of her privilege of attending school while pregnant, Mary’s experience reinforces the point for urgent and holistic action on the court’s recommendations. Pregnant at the young age of 15 and confused, she had to deal with pressure from both her family and society. While her father threatened to end her school career as punishment for bringing shame to the family, her peers ridiculed her for being a child mother.
“I thought I would die in that pregnancy. I thank God that WAVES came to my aid,” she says.
The government has unveiled several programmes it says were geared towards ending the culture of SGBV in Sierra Leone.
First Lady Fatima Bio’s ‘Hands off Our Girls’ campaign has helped raised awareness on teenage pregnancy.
The government’s flagship Free Quality Education programme has also opened doors for a lot of reforms, notably the Radical Inclusion policy of Basic Education Minister Dr David Sengeh, which reportedly inspired the lifting of the pregnant school girl ban.
After a failed attempt to get the Ministry to respond to a request for comment, I managed to get one from Mr Sengeh during a webinar on Public Education. He acknowledged the challenges on the ground and says teenage pregnancy requires collective responsibility in tackling it.
But he adds that the government didn’t lift the ban because of the ECOWAS court ruling, noting that it was in line with its principles. Sengeh stresses that President Julius Maada Bio had expressed his opposition to the ban.
The Bio administration inherited the policy from its predecessor, the APC-led Ernest Bai Koroma regime.
It however took the new government about three months after the court’s ruling in 2019 to lift the ban, nearly two years after it came to power.
Both FGM and child marriage are deep-rooted in the cultural and religious traditions of Sierra Leone, making them politically charged issues. Child marriage is especially common among the majority Muslim population, making it a taboo to discuss by politicians for fear of losing support.
It's also an open practice by politicians to sponsor Bondo celebrations as a way of buying favour from their constituents.
Efforts to tackle these issues was further complicated by the First Lady’s open endorsement of FGM, despite her campaign against abuse of the girl child.
Outside the education sector, there are a lot more blank spaces in the equation towards an SGBV free Sierra Leone. The legal framework, for instance, needs more vigor to fast track prosecution of cases.
The Family Support Unit (FSU) of the Sierra Leone Police is a key partner of the Safe Space project. But the Unit is bedeviled by lack of resources to adequately conduct conclusive investigations particularly on sexual offense cases.
Data from its Bo office suggests a reduction in sexual abuse cases but a persistent rise in cases of physical abuse.
Chief Superintendent Fatmata Susan Kamara, FSU Southern Region Coordinator, attributes this to engagement of girls both in and outside the school system, an indication of the positive impact of the lifting of the ban.
Her major challenges, however, include policing an area so vast, with limited resources. She also laments a high tendency for family members of victims to seek to settle cases outside the courts system.
These are all issues campaigners say must be addressed by a comprehensive government action for there to be any promising future for the girl child in Sierra Leone.
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